Current street tree communities reflect race-based housing policy and modern attempts to remedy environmental injustice.

ABSTRACT: Humans promote and inhibit other species on the urban landscape, shaping biodiversity patterns. Institutional racism may underlie the distribution of urban species by creating disproportionate resources in space and time. Here, we examine whether present-day street tree occupancy, diversity, and composition in Baltimore, MD, USA, neighborhoods reflect their 1937 classification into grades of loan risk-from most desirable (A = green) to least desirable (D = "redlined")-using racially discriminatory criteria. We find that neighborhoods that were redlined have consistently lower street tree α-diversity and are nine times less likely to have large (old) trees occupying a viable planting site. Simultaneously, redlined neighborhoods were locations of recent tree planting activities, with a high

SUBMITTER: Burghardt KT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10078568 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature