Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 40(2): March 2014 degree and percent of households with an income of less than USD $50,000 is -0.63. The correla- tion coefficient between percent white and per- cent without a high-school diploma is -0.49. There are a number of possible reasons why residents of census blocks with lower educa- tion levels are less willing to plant a tree. Young trees in Portland require watering in hot dry summer months, which represents an immedi- ate investment of time and money. The benefits trees provide take years to realize in terms of shade, value to the home, and other ecosystem services. Census block groups associated with less education and lower incomes are also corre- lated with more renters and higher rates of crime. Given that trees are a long-term investment; this environment and more immediate needs may make residents reluctant to plant a tree. DISCUSSION These findings raise some difficult issues about tree-planting programs. This research presents a dilemma for the City of Portland in particu- lar. A tree-planting program will tend to be more successful in areas of higher socioeco- nomic status. However, this success will have environmental justice implications, as areas with higher socioeconomic status tend to have more, and better maintained, environmental amenities. However, if the City concentrated their efforts in neighborhoods with lower socio- economic status in an attempt to alleviate envi- ronmental inequalities, then overall it is likely that fewer residents would agree to plant trees, which would result in fewer tree benefits for the whole city. The results do not provide direct insight into why residents of census block groups with lower edu- cation levels are less likely to participate in a tree- planting program. Broadly, residents with lower socioeconomic status may have different environ- mental preferences, or canvassers may have done a particularly poor job of convincing lower socio- economic status residents to plant trees. Beyond gender, there wasn’t any demographic data available on the canvassers. However, those in charge of the program remember canvassers as being predomi- nantly young, white, and educated. Furthermore, past research has shown that, across a range of social situations, people respond more positively to those 75 with a similar demographic profile (Durrant et al. 2010). Therefore, canvassers may simply have been more successful in neighborhoods where they more closely matched the demographics of residents. Although the demography of canvassers may partially explain the results, it is likely that resi- dents of census blocks with lower education levels also have different environmental preferences. For example, people of lower socioeconomic sta- tus are more likely to be renters and move more frequently (Masnick 2002). Both these reasons make an investment in a tree less appealing. It is also possible that trees provide different ben- efits in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status. For example, Troy and Grove (2008) found that in wealthy neighborhoods of Baltimore, Mary- land, U.S., houses nearer to parks had higher sale prices. In contrast, houses in poorer neighborhoods sold for less, if they were close to a park. The authors speculate that parks may attract crime in poorer neighborhoods. This explanation is bolstered by a later study (Troy et al. 2012), which found that higher tree-canopy cover was associated with lower crime in wealthier neighborhoods but was associ- ated with higher crime in poorer neighborhoods. These studies suggest that residents of lower socio- economic status neighborhoods may be responding rationally when they decline to participate in a tree- planting program. Although some of the benefits of trees may be lower in poorer neighborhoods, other benefits (e.g., air quality and stormwater mitiga- tion) are unaltered. However, some of these benefits are experienced by residents in other neighbor- hoods (e.g., reductions in stormwater runoff ben- efit a whole city or region). Therefore, tree-planting programs should be tailored to specific neighbor- hoods. Canvassers should be selected with care, and it may be appropriate to offer greater incentives to residents of poorer neighborhoods. Specifically, it may be fruitful to hire canvassers from the neigh- borhoods where a program is to be implemented, and a sliding scale could be used for tree costs. This study has several limitations. Researchers were forced to rely on demographic data at the cen- sus block group level, as they didn’t have access to data at the household level. Therefore, the results do not necessarily apply to a particular individual. In addition, the demographic characteristics of can- vassers are not known. It would have been interest- ©2014 International Society of Arboriculture
March 2014
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