170 Ries et al.: Impact of Statewide Urban Forestry Programs and examination of comparisons and contrasts were used ana- lyze the results. The data from 2004 was then compared with the data from 1992. No additional tests of significance were done. From a land perspective, Oregon can be considered a rural state, but from a population perspective, its population dis- tribution is actually 79% urban and 21% rural. Although Or- egon is the ninth largest state in land area, it ranks 28th in population. Oregon has a population of 3.4 million people, 2.4 million (or 68%) of whom live in Oregon’s 240 incorpo- rated cities. The population distribution for Oregon cities ranges from fewer than a dozen to over 500,000 people. De- mographically, 169 (70%) of Oregon cities can be classified as small cities with a population of 5,000 people or fewer, 55 cities (23%) are medium cities with populations ranging from 5,000 to 25,000 people, and 16 (7%) are large cities with more than 25,000 residents. The 2004 survey used the same city size classification for data analysis as the 1992 survey did. This method of stratifying cities by population size has been successfully used in other urban forestry surveys (Reeder and Gerhold 1993; Tschantz and Sacamano 1994) for comparative analysis. Of Oregon’s 240 incorporated cities, 123 completed the 2004 survey that forms the basis of this report for an overall response rate of 51%. The response rate for small cities was 41%; for medium cities, it was 71%; and for large cities, it was 94%. The total reported population for responding cities was 1,938,522, meaning that the responding cities encompass 80% of the total number of people living within the bound- aries of Oregon cities. So although the survey response rate equates to roughly half of the incorporated cities, those cities that responded account for more than three-fourths of the population residing in municipalities. Response rates for the 2004 survey were comparable to the previous survey, except for small communities. Table 1 lists the response detail for the 2004 survey as compared with the 1992 survey. Table 1 also reveals the urbanization of Oregon between these two survey intervals. The number of small cities has declined, whereas medium and large cities have increased in number. The state population has also increased during the interval between the two surveys, from 2.8 million in 1990 to the present 3.4 million. Most of the increase has been net migration to medium and large cities. 2004 Survey no. and percent of cities responding Small cities (less than 5,000 pop.) Medium cities (5,000 to 25,000 pop.) Large cities (over 25,000 pop.) Totals ©2007 International Society of Arboriculture 69 (43%) 39 (71%) 15 (94%) 123 (51%) SURVEY FINDINGS Scope of the Urban Forest Resource A portion of the survey was designed to collect information about what common municipal urban forestry program ele- ments were present in the responding community. Respon- dents were initially asked a question about whether they had a tree planting and tree care program in their city and about the specific program components present. The term “tree planting and care program” was used to replicate the lan- guage in previous survey, rather than the term “urban for- estry,” as a result of the fact that Oregon has a large percent- age of smaller communities that may not relate to the term “urban” in this context. In the 2004 survey, 37% of the re- spondents reported that they had a tree planting or tree care program in their city. This figure is an increase over the 1992 survey, which found 26% of respondents had such a program. Both of Oregon’s surveys found that in general, when moving from small to large cities, the proportion of cities with urban forestry programs, and specific program elements, increases. This finding is consistent with other studies (Reeder and Gerhold 1993; Schroeder et al. 2003) and is also consistent with the field experiences of state urban foresters. In Oregon, programs are clearly more common in large cities (73%) in contrast to medium cities (53%) and small cities (20%). This finding is not unexpected given that many larger cities have more resources to maintain a tree planting or tree care program. As a result of their larger geographic size and more extensive road networks, larger populated cities will also have more trees to manage (in general) and therefore the need for a tree planting or tree care program may be more prominent. Because of this variation among city sizes, a ma- jority of Oregon’s incorporated population (63%) lives in cities that have a tree program, although the number of cities with programs is a smaller percentage. Although only 37% of 2004 respondents reported the pres- ence of a “program,” 62% reported that they had a municipal tree ordinance or other codes related to trees, one of the foundational components to having a program. The discrep- ancy between these two figures may reflect an uncertainty about what actually constituted a program for the purposes of this survey. The higher percentage of cities with ordinances suggests that the percentage of cities with programs may Table 1. Oregon city populations and survey response rates, 2004 and 1992. 2004 City size distribution 169 (70%) 55 (23%) 16 (7%) 240 (100%) 1992 Survey no. and percent of cities responding 113 (62%) 30 (67%) 8 (67%) 151 (63%) 1992 City size distribution 183 (76%) 45 (18%) 12 (5%) 240 (100%)
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