Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 38(4): July 2012 merce, municipal officials, and elected officials shared similar opinions on urban tree and forest management (Ricard 1994). Stevenson et al. (2008) collected survey responses from 528 officials in 356 municipalities regarding the developmen- tal status of municipal street tree programs. Three types of of- ficials were asked to complete surveys: elected chief officials, public works administrators, and municipal solicitors. They found that in existing programs, which had an ordinance, tree commission, inventory, and management plan, officials had more positive attitudes about trees than in developing pro- grams. However, even for cities without existing programs (or with the intention to develop them), half of the officials believed that benefits of street trees outweigh the costs and problems. Many aspects of municipal officials’ attitude toward urban trees and management have not been explored in past studies. Mostly, only the positive or benefits were assessed, not the cost or problems. It has not been investigated how the knowledge on urban trees of the employees and administrators would have an impact on the city’s budget allocation toward urban forestry. It is also not clear whether there are any variations among the differ- ent officials regarding their perceptions of urban tree programs. This study aims to contribute to the literature from these aspects. DATA AND METHODS This paper uses data from a survey of Alabama urban forestry in 2003. The survey reached cities having more than 250 resi- dents. The respondents included municipal clerks, adminis- trators, and mayors. For cities with more than 1,500 residents, the council members were also surveyed. The respondents selected in each municipality represent those who could po- tentially influence the start or improvement of a tree program. The survey contacted 1,862 persons who worked for city ad- ministrative offices, of which 797 (43%) responded from 336 cities. Responses from the secretaries of city offices, mayors, council members, and other city administrators were 12,204, 359, and 220, respectively. Among the respondents, 33.12% were from municipalities with a population less than 2,000; 23.46% were from a population ranging between 2,001 and 5,000; 18.32% were from a population ranging between 5,001 and 10,000; and 25.07% were from a population of over 10,000. The survey included questions regarding following as- pects: a) the level of importance of urban trees to community Description 161 citizens; b) levels of problems from urban forests; c) benefits and problems of urban forests; d) opportunities offered by the community for its citizens to be involved (e.g., volun- teer and donate money) in urban forestry; and e) awareness of community funding for urban forests and their changes. The respondents were requested to indicate their aware- ness of the existence of tree agencies or programs, which may include a Tree Board, Tree Commission, City Forester, Mu- nicipal tree program, Privately funded tree program, publicly funded tree program, Citizen Advocacy Group, Tree inventory, Street tree ordinance, Landscape ordinance, Tree protection or- dinance, Nuisance tree ordinance, Park/public tree ordinance, View ordinance, Urban Forestry Department, or Ordinance governing trees on private properties. The respondents were also inquired regarding their familiarity with a service/agency or program of urban trees at the state level. Examples include the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, National Arbor Day Foundation, American Forests, International So- ciety of Arboriculture, Alabama Forestry Commission, Tree for Alabama, and Alabama Urban Forestry Association. Regression analysis, more specifically, the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models, were used to assess what might affect the amount of money the respondents’ community spent on the trees in the following four categories: urban tree planting, urban tree maintenance, urban tree debris removal, and urban tree removal. It is hypothesized that the amount of money spent on each manage- ment category is a function of a city/community’s characteristics and the attitude of municipal officials toward trees. The amount of funding cities can provide is highly related to their socioeconomic status, such as household income, poverty rate, race composition, and education level. It was believed that the municipal employ- ees’ attitudes toward urban trees and their knowledge of urban tree programs could be important. Models are presented below: [1] Log (Y1 j)= ++ 0 ii x where j = 1,…,4, representing the four categories of urban tree funding uses (see Table 1). The explanation of depen- dent variables Y and independent variables Xi are shown in Table 1. The values of X1 to X5 were obtained from U.S census survey data in 2000 through a zip code inquiry. The values of X6 to X9 were constructed from the survey ques- tions. The descriptive statistics were also shown in Table 1. Table 1. Description of explanatory variables used in the analysis. Currency is expressed in U.S. dollars. Var Means (Std.)/Freq N = 797 Y1 Y1 Y1 Y1 1 2 3 4 X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9 Funding spent on urban tree planting ($) Funding spent on urban tree maintenance ($) Funding spent on urban tree debris removal ($) Funding spent on urban tree removal ($) Population of the city (persons) The percentage of whites in the city Residents holding high school or higher degree (%) The median of city household income Poverty percentage in the city Number of tree agencies in the city Awareness of AL forestry services (counting # known agency/service) Appreciation of urban tree in citizens’ life (scale from 1 to 5) Plan to plant urban tree for next five years (1 = Yes; 0 = No) 9,437 (10096) 12,829 (13500) 17,293 (16371) 13,984 (13175) 14,359 (25652) 75.48% (20.10%) 71.54% (8.10%) 32552 (8730) 13.77% (7.71%) 2.02 (2.69) 2.68 (1.73) 3.64 (0.54) 27.98% ©2012 International Society of Arboriculture ε ββ
July 2012
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