Urban Tree Management Ordinances

A soil conservation expert from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (left) discusses urban tree management with a member of a local urban greening project on a Los Angeles, California, street.

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service/Bob Nichols

Urban planning has an ethical duty to consider trees, bushes, and other vegetation within its broad policy framework. The urban forest reduces air and noise pollution, changes air temperature and wind speed, reduces energy consumption, slows rainfall runoff, offers habitat for wildlife, increases urban biodiversity, improves urban aesthetics and community image, and has manifest human and environmental health benefits among other positive impacts on city welfare. For that reason, trees need to be maintained (e.g., pruned, fertilized, and watered), to be preserved, ...