Ben Thompson, urban forestry program manager with the Department of Natural Resources, offered a similar sentiment.
The state is urbanizing rapidly, Thompson said, and the spread of hard surfaces — roads, parking lots, rooftops — is harming the environment and imperiling people’s health. Those impacts are often felt most acutely by people in low-income areas or marginalized neighborhoods.
Urban trees address many of the problems that come with urbanization and past discrimination. But, Thompson said, to “maximize these benefits, cities must invest in the care and management of their trees to the same degree they manage other public assets.”
“Unfortunately, many communities lack the resources to do this,” he
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