Individual households and their trees: Fine-scale characteristics shaping urban forests

Abstract

In urban areas, the pattern of trees is often a result of municipal policy, built form, neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, and the actions of local actors. Recent research has focused on the role of neighborhood socioeconomics, and begun to explore the underlying causes of uneven distributions of urban forests associated with different socioeconomic groups. To date, little work has explored property-level tree conditions in relation to disaggregated household characteristics and actions, yet the household is the scale where most decisions about residential tree planting and care are made. This study examines the role of property-level built conditions, household socioeconomics, and residents’ actions and attitudes in relation to property-level canopy cover and tree density. The study area is four neighborhoods in the City of Mississauga (ON, Canada). Regression analyses were conducted to explore significant variables related to the two tree measures for all properties together and separately by neighborhood. The results indicate that property conditions and residents actions are more important in relation to tree variations than socioeconomic factors. Additionally, several significant factors have opposite relationships with percent canopy cover and tree density. These results highlight the need to consider property-level built conditions, residents’ actions, and multiple measures of the urban forest to better understand the patterns of trees in cities.