236 Schroeder et al.: Residents’ Attitudes Toward Street Trees Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2006. 32(5):236–246. Residents’ Attitudes Toward Street Trees in the UK and U.S. Communities Herbert Schroeder, John Flannigan, and Richard Coles Abstract. Research on residents’ attitudes has shown that street trees are highly valued elements of the urban environment and that their benefits far outweigh their annoyances. Much of this research was done in communities in the United States, and it is uncertain whether the findings can be generalized to other communities or countries. We compared residents’ opinions of street trees, perceptions of the benefits and annoyances trees provide, and preferences for tree size, shape, and growth rate between three communities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Overall, opinions of nearby street trees were positive and did not differ between the two UK communities and the U.S. community. Respondents in the UK communities rated annoyances as more serious, shade as less of a benefit, and physical benefits as more significant than did the residents of the U.S. community. Respondents in the two UK communities also preferred smaller trees with slower growth rates. Although these comparisons cannot be used to make inferences about differences between the entire United Kingdom and United States, they do suggest some specific ways in which community characteristics such as climate and proximity of trees to houses may contribute to variation in attitudes toward trees. Key Words. Attitudes; benefits; residents; street trees; United Kingdom; United States. The perceptions and attitudes of urban residents regarding street trees and vegetation in their communities have been well researched using visual simulation methods (Kalmbach and Kielbaso 1979; Schroeder and Cannon 1983; Sheets and Manzer 1991; Sommer et al. 1993b) and questionnaires ask- ing residents about street trees in front of their homes (Som- mer et al. 1989, 1990, 1993a; Schroeder and Ruffolo 1996). These studies have consistently shown that urban residents have a very positive view of trees, and that the annoyances of trees are outweighed by the benefits they provide. Most of these studies, however, have focused on specific cities or towns in North America, and researchers have cautioned against assuming that results from one study will generalize to other communities, cultures, and climatic zones. In this article, we present an initial attempt to compare attitudes toward street trees between residents of selected communities in the United Kingdom and the United States. We combined data from a new survey of two communities in southwest England (Flannigan 2005) with data from an ear- lier study in a midwestern U.S. community (Schroeder and Ruffolo 1996) to explore how opinions of street trees and perceptions of the benefits and annoyances of trees vary across residents from communities located in different coun- tries. Concerns over the generalizability of research on attitudes toward street trees seem well founded in light of the few ©2006 International Society of Arboriculture studies that have examined tree preferences outside the United States. For example, Williams (2002) discovered a greater appreciation for medium-sized trees in Australia as compared with the larger street trees preferred in the United States (Kalmbach and Kielbaso 1979; Schroeder and Cannon 1983). Fraser and Kenney (2000) found that Canadian resi- dents with cultural backgrounds from different parts of the world had dramatically different preferences for the presence, size, and kinds of trees near their homes. In Scotland, Hitch- mough and Bonugli (1997) found little support for street tree planting among residents of treeless streets, suggesting that the shade-casting role played by trees is appreciated more in sunnier locations such as the midwestern United States than in cooler, less sunny locations like the northern United Kingdom. General arboricultural texts in the United Kingdom tend to echo Hitchmough and Bonugli’s (1997) negative findings. Eminent UK arborists have described the “I love trees but . . .” phenomenon. Giles Biddle (quoted in Clouston and Stans- field 1981, p. 17), for example, has stated that, “Perhaps one of the most commonly heard cries is ‘I like trees, but not in front of my house.’” Peter Annett (quoted in Baker 1984, p. 46) adds, “How often have we heard ‘I do not like trees because . . . ,’” whereas Derek Patch (quoted in Horticulture Week 1994, p. 11) has described how “Street trees are often unloved by the public . . . .” Dobson and Patch (1997, p. 1)
September 2006
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