122 Zhang and Zheng: Assessments of Citizen Willingness to Support Urban Forestry Table 4. The attitudes and preference for financing community trees programs. Frequency (%) Variables State sales tax Local property tax Estate tax Corporate income tax Private donations Others 1 very important 7.40 14.32 7.34 Alcohol and tobacco tax 30.46 State income tax 8.50 23.45 42.64 38.37 2 10.76 14.54 5.73 10.82 9.40 12.83 22.86 10.47 3 11.43 14.99 8.49 11.26 14.77 14.82 13.85 6.98 In contrast with retired respondents, employed individuals are less likely to consider having trees on their property, holding other variables constant. A one unit increase in the rating of negative im- pact of trees would reduce the probability to support having trees within the community by 0.74%, suggesting that respondents who rate highly the negative impact of trees are less likely to support having trees in a community. However, most of the explanatory variables are not significant, such as income, family size, race, age, presence of young child, and gender, suggesting that people in general enjoy trees regardless of their personal characteristics. Regarding the sources of public funding supporting a com- munity’s planting and maintenance of trees, the local government is considered by 60% of respondents to be important, while only 50% and 25% for state government and federal government, re- spectively. “Private donations” is also widely considered being an important source, but using taxes as a financial source is not largely supported with the exception of the “alcohol and tobacco tax” and corporate income tax. The “state sales tax,” “local prop- erty tax,” and “estate tax” each received low support (Table 4). Since most people indicate that “private donations” is an im- portant source for financing urban tree programs, their willing- ness to donate became an important question. In the survey, peo- ple were asked to rate their willingness to donate money and the willingness to volunteer time to support urban tree activities. Only 20% of the respondents indicated they are very likely to donate time or money toward a community tree program. This finding suggests that although people notice private donation is impor- tant for the establishment of community trees, they do not have a strong willingness to donate either time or money themselves. Furthermore, when comparing the question of “How much should an average family support urban tree programs annual- ly?” versus “How much would you like to donate annually?”, it was found that, on average, donations for an urban tree program would be $14 less than the money respondents think should be used to support such a program (Table 1). Without specifying the source of funding, most are inclined to say they like trees in residential areas and strongly support the urban forestry pro- gram. However, when respondents were asked to bear the costs either by all the community members or voluntarily, the amount of donation is more in question. To investigate what factors affect the amount of donations to urban trees programs, a multiple re- gression was conducted, and the results are presented in Table 5. The results suggest that both models are significant at a 1% level. R2 in these two models indicate the variation is explained by the variables by 10% and 13%, respectively. Factors that sig- nificantly influence the money respondents believe should be do- nated to support community trees are race, gender, and income. Factors significantly influencing a respondent’s willingness to ©2011 International Society of Arboriculture 4 18.16 15.88 19.04 15.67 18.34 15.49 11.87 9.30 5 11.21 8.50 9.63 5.74 9.84 5.53 2.86 2.33 6 8.07 7.38 10.09 4.19 8.28 6.19 1.10 3.49 7 not important 32.96 24.38 39.68 21.85 30.87 21.68 4.84 29.07 4.71 (2.03) 4.09 (2.14) 5.07 (1.98) 3.55 (2.30) 4.60 (2.04) 3.72 (2.23) 2.32 (1.61) 3.35 (2.57) donate money (or would be donated) include gender, income, and the awareness of tree service. High income families will donate more for urban tree programs in both “should” and “would” mod- els. However, the magnitude of money is 0.1 dollars higher for “would donate” than “should donate” for each one thousand dol- lar increase in annual household income. That is to say, an indi- vidual’s donation decision is more sensitive to their income level. The public’s knowledge of tree services significantly influences the amount of donation in the “would donate” model. A better knowledge of the forestry service agencies such as the USDA For- est Service will increase public support of an urban tree program. Individual characteristics also matter in this case. White re- spondents, on average, believe that a family should donate $18 more on tree programs than do African-American respondents. Males, on average believe a family should donate $14 less than do female respondents. Family background such as family size, pres- ence of child less than 18-years-old, working status, education lev- el, and age have no significant influence on the donation amount. To explore the level of obtaining financing from the alcohol and tobacco tax, a logistic model is applied. The results of or- dered logistic regression are presented in Table 6. The model is statistically significant at 1% level with a χ2 value of 31.04. The results suggest that education level and being male are pos- itively associated with the tendency to support alcohol and to- bacco tax. For every one level increase in education (from high school to some college, from some college to bachelor’s degree), a 0.5–0.7 increase in the expected log odds were expect as one moves to the next higher level of support. The probability of hav- ing a high level of support increases by 13.44 % and 10.36% for college education and bachelor’s degree, respectively. That Table 5. Regression results for donation willingness. Funds in U.S. dollars. Variables Intercept Awareness of tree service Family size Child < 18 yrs College Bachelor’s degree White Male Age Income (in thousand $) Employed R2 F-value (χ2 ) z statistically significant at 5% level y Should donate ($ per family) 18.08z -14.01z 22.20 (16.32) 1.89 (1.71) 0.55 (3.82) -4.74 (4.99) 6.10 (8.19) 9.42 (7.86) (6.78) (5.17) 0.07 (0.21) 0.17z -2.26 (5.76) 0.10 2.80 statistically significant at 10% level Note:Values in parenthesis indicate standard error. (0.08) Would donate ($ per family) -19.71 (12.04) 2.29z (1.19) -3.91 (3.00) -0.50 (3.61) 6.06 (5.97) -0.54 (5.73) 2.07 (4.96) -6.58y 5.30 (4.28) 0.13 3.52 Mean (std. dev) -0.01 (0.17) 0.27z (3.76) (0.06)
May 2011
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