Trees by Resident Request: Who Wants More Trees and What Are the Consequences?

Citizens’ interest in improving neighborhood greenspace is an important component of addressing the distributional inequity of urban trees and greenspace, which brings a variety of benefits to urban dwellers. With proper support, such interest may transform into real land cover change, enlarging or reducing the current discrepancy of greenspace supply across groups of urban populations. This study examined how citizens’ interest in growing street trees was influenced by socioeconomic status (race and income), residential situation (rent/own, occupied/vacant), and land cover in New Haven, CT. Furthermore, we investigated the current greenspace distribution and its association with residents’ characteristics to discuss the impact of an interest-based tree-planting program. Regression analysis showed that income and street tree density significantly contributed to the number of tree requests during 2016–2019. An increase of USD 1000 in median household income or one additional street tree per kilometer would increase the number of tree requests by 5.9 or 2.5 within a block group, respectively. There were differences in the distribution of greenspace in terms of race/class and residential situation, and such disparities were further enlarged by the fact that better-off neighborhoods requested more trees. These findings indicated that income and land cover may promote citizens’ interest in improving neighborhood greenspace. Simply relying on citizens’ interest in improving neighborhood environments may polarize the existing discrepancy in greenspace supply. Approaches targeting certain areas are needed in order to reduce the gap between greenspace supply and access across different socioeconomic groups. The community greenspace program, which supports residents in building neighborhood gardens on vacant lots, is an example of this kind.