On June 6, 2019, I was invited to a workshop to discuss trees and their beneficial effects to health by The Nature Conservancy of Illinois at the 2019 Pritzker Forum on Global Cities Workshop "Nature for Urban Health” at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. And then on July 9, 2019, I attended CRTI's Lydia Scott's presentation at Chi Hack Night on “Using Urban Forestry Data to Improve Health and Quality of Life in the Chicago Region.” I approached Lydia and we began fruitful conversations around how trees and public health data can be used together to improve community health.
This repo was then created on July 19, 2019 to develop a public health strategy to improve Chicago's urban canopy using a health equity lens to equitably plant new trees driven by community, maintining and preserving existing trees, improving tree benefit communications, and providing workforce development and job training. At first, this was a scan of the environment for evidence-based research, resources, best-practices, etc. It also serves to accelerate the latest science and innovative porgamming to promote alignment and unification of ad hoc and disparate tree initiatives across all stakeholders into a cohesive and coordinated approach to tree planting and sustainability of Chicago’s urban canopy by prioritizing vulnerable communities.
I began a TreeKeepers certification through Openlands that I completed on December 7, 2019. Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic delayed a lot of the tree initiative planning since I was detailed by the City to supervise the public health tech modernization. On behalf of CDPH, I was was later invited to join CRTI’s Executive Advisory Council in March 2020 and we began to collaborate with their GIS Administrator, Lindsay Darling around their LiDAR-based land cover data that was showing less trees in historically marginalized and underserved communities.
We were also working on Phase 1 of The Partnership for Healthy Cities award that was applied for by CDPH in 2017 and the award given to the Center for Spatial Data Science to collect and visualize baseline air quality data for the City of Chicago from NASA satellites, EPA sensor networks, USGS, and NOAA climate data. In Phase 2, we added trees to mapping air quality in 2020 after pitching the ideas of using a map based tool that can help prioritize communities and allocate trees and resources was made internally at CDPH and then to CRTI and USFS in December 2019. CRTI's Tree Canopy data was added to public health, environmental, social and economic data to better understand tree canopy in vulnerable neighborhoods throughout the city and to reduce the impacts of climate change on these communities. The Center for Spatial Data Science created an Environmental Tool that piloted is since late 2021 to 2022.
To draft a tree equity plan, I started using CDPH's Healthy Chicago 2025 to advance racial equity to close Chicago’s life expectancy gap to frame a tree equity strategy using public health indicators, under the section “Further the Health and Vibrancy of Neighborhoods” where all communities should have equitable access to environments that promote optimal health and well-being. Applying CDC's One Health framework also reveals how the health of humans, animals, and the environment are inextricably connected, emphasizing that vulnerability in one impacts the others. To further the health of neighborhoods, the City of Chicago has adopted a “health in all policies” approach to make sure that the government works with communities to shape our social, economic, and physical environments in ways that promote health and racial equity. Finally, Our Roots Chicago had to ensure equity amd grounded in budget, plans, policies and programs that align, especially since the funding is through Chicago’s first-ever social bond issuance. The following are what finally guided Our Roots Chicago:
Chicago Climate Bond - $173M bond to invest in meaningful, substantive, and justice-oriented climate projects that will provide the City’s underserved communities with resilient infrastructure and green workforce development opportunities. $46 million for equity tree planting.(1)
Chicago Budget Equity - CDPH’s Environment, Climate, & Energy Outcomes inform decision making in policy areas such as land use/zoning, permitting, and enforcement to promote environmental justice through a cumulative impact assessment, including tree canopy cover.(2)
Chicago 2022 Climate Action Plan - Comprehensive plan to reduce the city’s GHG emissions 62% by 2040, anchored in values of economic inclusion and savings, pollution burden reduction, and equitable access to critical infrastructure and community health and resilience.(3)
Healthy Chicago 2025 Plan - CDPH’s Community Health Improvement Plan required by the Public Health Accreditation Board that focuses on racial and health equity to meet our goal of reducing the Black-white life expectancy gap including Environment as one of the priority areas in Priority Populations that include Black Chicagoans; Latino Chicagoans; Low-income Chicagoans; Communities disproportionately burdened by pollution; and Disinvested and gentrifying communities.(4)
CDPH Health Equity in All Policies Program - The City has adopted a "health in all policies" approach to make sure that the whole of government works together with community to shape our social, economic and physical environments in ways that promote health and racial equity.(5)
Environmental Justice Executive Order - Advancing the City’s commitment to environmental justice for all Chicagoans, making consideration of health and other community impacts a priority across departments and in City policies.(6)
While the data shows that there is a tree equity disparity in urban canopies across the US, this is not lost on our frontline communities that that already disproportionately bear the brunt of environmental hazards and climate change impacts. As a result, they may become more vulnerable to the risks of extreme heat and urban heat islands, flooding, air pollution, as well as a loss of the health and climate co-benefits that trees provide. The latest research by CRTI shows that Chicago has one of the smallest urban canopies of any big city in the US, based on 2010 data from the Chicago Region Trees Initiative Priority Map.
Prioritizing communities based on sociodemographics, health, air quality, climate, and tree canopy data may also help community building, workforce "green corps" training, development, and jobs, as well as tree plantings and preservation. Several Chicago community organizations already have existing plans for their neighborhood's urban canopy. We want to learn from their successes, promote and fund them, but not to replace their plans.
Through discussions with local and national partners, the data on tree census and estimation of the canopy density and heights using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), new tools may better assist in the determination of communities with reduced urban canopies that may also have greater needs due to higher chronic cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, high economic hardship, and low air quality. However, no matter how great the latest data and tech innovations are, this initiative will always be community-driven and data informed.
The benefit of trees are multifold and include: promoting and improving physical and mental health, improving social cohesion, reducing stress, increasing property values, reducing energy bills, mitigating climate change, reducing urban heat islands and increasing cooling effects, decreasing soil erosion, storm water management and flood prevention, reducing air pollution, repairing local tree biodiversity, providing critical bird, small animal and essential insect habitats, amongst many other environmental benefits. In the end, this is only accomplished by working together with residents who already maintain their neighborhood trees, and working with them to protect and restore their community trees through the Tree Ambassador Program, in partnership wiuth the Morton Arboretum's Chicago Region Trees Initiative. (This part of the story will be contiunued soon).