Treeless streets and sleepless nights: How cities overprotect infrastructure and underprotect citizens

• Significant ‘no plant’ distances are enforced near cables, poles and hydrants. • This is to limit the risk of issues such as obstructions or root issues. • With widespread use of this approach, greening becomes very difficult. • The health risks of the resulting under-provision of nature are considerable. • More balanced regimes of risk management, using resilience thinking, are preferable. Urban landscapes must provide residents with a range of infrastructure, both grey and green. However, current regimes of risk management for utilities and transport infrastructure tend to prohibit the planting of trees and other greenery within fairly large distances of cables, pipes, hydrants and poles, among other features. This precautionary approach has sought to mitigate minor risks such as root intrusions, but has inadvertently had the cumulative effect of making significant areas of the public realm ‘leafless’. This exclusion of nature exposes residents to an array of quite serious health risks, which we outline. Drawing on medical evidence, contemporary examples and a narrative of lived experience, we argue that this is a badly imbalanced regime of risk management. This perspective illuminates the unintended health and social consequences of risk-averse infrastructure policies and advocates resilience-based approaches to urban tree integration, which will require significant reform to governance structures.