Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 34(1): January 2008 Table 2. State-by-state comparison of population to sample. 2000 census number of towns between 5,000 and 25,000 Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi North Carolina Oklahoma South Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia Total 88 45 321 107 75 91 57 100 54 70 79 245 94 1426 Towns with contact information 74 40 108 80 63 49 47 87 52 43 63 190 35 931 tenance, one would think that a successful program would result. The mayor was asked to answer a series of value-based questions on the benefits the town receives from its trees. The answers to these items were summed to create an index ( 0.69). How long the mayor has served, the mayor’s gender, and relative importance of tree maintenance as seen for the specific mayor’s administration are also included in this category. One must also recognize that challenges, including such prob- lems as costs of planting and maintenance, liability costs, and storms, are faced differently by towns. These would serve as Table 3. Factors related to successful tree maintenance. Factor Components and descriptors Independent variables Structural/demographic Education (percent high school degree or more) Income (median household income) Population size Availability of state resources Municipal organizational structure Mayor’s knowledge of state forestry agency Index, based on whether town has: ● a tree ordinance; ● specific department and person responsible for UCF; or ● specific budget for UCF. Characteristics of mayor Value of trees to mayor (count of perceived benefits of trees the mayor cites) Importance of tree maintenance for mayor Years served as mayor Gender Challenges of maintenance Costs of planting, maintenance, liability/insurance, storm cleanup, impeding progress, lack of consensus on assigning tree value Community social capital Extent of public interest in planting and maintenance Dependent variable Basic tree maintenance Index based on whether town routinely performs pruning, mulching, removal/stump grinding, fertilizing, and planting UCF urban and community forestry. Percent coverage in sampling frame 84.1 88.9 33.6 74.8 84.0 53.8 82.5 87.0 96.3 61.4 79.7 77.6 37.2 65.3 Survey response 42 22 53 41 40 29 24 48 24 33 35 94 19 504 Final percent response 56.8 55.0 49.1 51.3 63.5 59.2 51.1 55.2 46.2 76.7 55.6 49.5 54.3 54.1 mitigating factors. A low Cronbach’s alpha level indicated that these items needed to be included separately rather than in scaled format ( 0.29). As noted in Table 3, these include costs of planting, maintenance, liability/insurance, storm cleanup, imped- ing progress, and lack of consensus in the community on assign- ing tree value. To measure the final factor, social capital, mayors were asked to indicate, on a scale of 1 (not influential) to 5 (very influential), how important various persons and groups were for promoting planting and tree maintenance. This included the newspaper, schoolchildren, garden clubs, state urban forester, street mainte- nance personnel, utility companies, city council members, gen- eral population, county extension personnel, churches, urban for- est committee, and master gardeners. Scale analysis revealed that this set of questions measured a very strong unidimensional composite ( 0.85). FINDINGS Urban and Community Forestry Tree Maintenance The mayors reported the following levels of routine tree main- tenance activity: 79% prune, 58% mulch, 43% fertilize, and 47% remove trees and stumps (Table 4). Less than two-thirds reported either planting trees in the last 5 years or planning to do so in the future. Ten percent of all towns reported not performing any of these activities, whereas 20% reported performing all of them. On average, communities completed almost three (2.9) of the activities. Structural, Demographic Factors Communities in the study were quite diverse. Educational levels ranged from 21% to 99% with high school degrees or more with Table 4. Tree maintenance practices of communities. Tree maintenance activities routinely performed Pruning Mulching Removal/stump grinding Fertilizing Major planting in last 5 years or in future Percent 79 58 47 43 61 ©2008 International Society of Arboriculture 43
January 2008
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