Journal of Arboriculture 31(6): November 2005 291 residents for every tree) (calculated by dividing a town’s total number of public trees by its population from the 2000 census). Trees per capita were lowest for the smallest towns (500 or less population) and the largest towns (above 3,000 population) at 0.21 to 0.23 trees per resident (4.3 to 4.8 residents per tree). Towns from 1,001 to 3,000 population had the highest number of trees per capita at 0.43 (2.3 residents per tree), with towns of 501 to 1,000 close behind. Table 3. Average total number of trees and trees per capita in communities by type of location and overall (with standard errors in parentheses). Per capita figures were obtained by dividing a community’s total number of trees by its population. Overall mean community tree number was 2,300 (standard error = 749). Tree location Streets Parks Golf courses Building grounds Cemetery Other* 118–500 501–1K 18 19 0 5 14 0 0.21 26 28 1 6 16 4 0.37 Town population class 1K–3K 3K–10K 124 71 19 6 36 405 0.43 428 166 47 18 63 43 10K–50K 3,307 1,799 243 66 212 0 Average community tree no.(s.e.) 57(10.2) 285(173) 662(405) 1,225(604) 5,564(2080) Average trees per capita 0.23 *Other locations include schools, churches, river corridors, utility rights-of-way, undeveloped greenspace, landscape strips, and streetscapes. Our statewide figure of 0.30 trees per capita was lower than the 0.37 trees per capita cited for 22 U.S. cities in the mid-1980s by McPherson and Rowntree (1989), but 18 of their study cities were located in the more densely wooded midwestern and eastern United States. Our numbers are comparable to or lower than those reported for several cities in Wisconsin, Illinois, and North Dakota by Flatley (2001), who found a range of 0.23 to 0.53 trees per capita, counting only street trees. Nowak et al. (2001) reported much higher urban trees per capita by state (estimated by remote sensing), with values ranging from 4 to 251 and equaling 9 in Utah, but they included all trees in urban areas, not just public trees. It appears from our data that larger cities in Utah perhaps need to boost their tree planting efforts to at least bring them up to a level similar to the 0.43 trees per capita accomplished by smaller towns. It could be, though, that larger cities, many of which have active community forestry programs and knowl- edgeable urban forest managers, have provided more accurate estimates of their tree numbers. Community Tree Policy and Management. Just over 44% of responding communities had a municipal employee in charge of managing their community trees, compared to 37% reported by FF&SL in the early 1990s (Table 4). Treiman and Gartner (2004) found that 70% of Missouri communities had an employee who at least occasionally participates in tree care activities. About one-third (30%) of Utah towns had a master tree plan, and 57% had a tree ordinance, both figures almost double that found previously by FF&SL. Similar propor- tions of southern communities in 2003 (33%; Watson 2004) and northeastern Pennsylvania communities in 2000 (29%; Elmendorf et al. 2003) had urban forest management or tree plans, while only 10% of Missouri communities in 2001 had tree management plans (Treiman and Gartner 2004), and only 16% of U.S. cities in 1986 had an urban forest management plan (Kielbaso 1990). Tree ordinances were reported by 22% of communities in Missouri (compre- hensive tree ordi- nances; Treiman and Gartner 2004), 78% in Pennsylvania (street tree ordi- nances; Elmendorf et al. 2003), 84% in California (Thompson and Ahern 2000), and 61% nationwide in 1986 (Kielbaso 1990) and 86% in 1994 (Tschantz and Sacamano 1995). > 50,000 11,420 4,259 680 286 275 6,844 0.22 20,470(10,562) 0.22 The proportion of Utah towns with a tree inventory more than doubled since the early 1990s, to 45%, identical to the corresponding figure for California in 1997 (Thomp- son and Ahern 2000) and close to the 43% for northeastern Pennsylvania (Elmendorf et al. 2003). However, a consider- ably higher proportion (63%) of southern U.S. municipali- ties had tree inventories in 2002 (Watson 2004), and, in 1994, 78% of U.S. communities said they had spent money on an inventory (Tschantz and Sacamano 1995). In contrast, only one of six large northeastern cities, New York City, had a recent tree inventory (Carroll 2003). All of these figures show considerable increase in program quality and capacity in Utah in the past 10 years, with programs similar to or in some cases better than in some other parts of the country. The rate of hiring a dedicated urban forester though, arguably a sign of a very active program, increased at a much lower rate than other program aspects. When these program aspects are com- pared by town size, about one-fourth of the towns with a population under 1,000 had a municipal employee in charge of trees, and the proportion increased steadily as town size increased (Table 4). Treiman and Gartner (2004) reported only a slight trend toward increased hiring with increasing town size in Missouri. The proportion of Utah towns with master tree and landscaping plans, tree ordinances, land- scaping ordinances, and a tree inventory all increased ©2005 International Society of Arboriculture
November 2005
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