When Denver resident Jenn Greiving moved from Platt Park to Overland in 2018, the difference in greenspace and foliage was immediately noticeable. Even now as she looks out the window of her home in southeast Overland, she doesn’t see many trees.
“I see older historic homes, but trees have been removed or trees have been relocated, and there’s just not a lot of tree canopy,” Grieving added.
Denver’s urban tree canopy is inconsistent across the city, providing lots of tree cover and shade in some neighborhoods like Washington Park and City Park, but leaving adjacent neighborhoods like Overland and Five Points with low tree canopy and thus hotter daily temperatures. In areas with less tree cover, residents can also experience worse air quality, lower mental health, poorer health outcomes and less community engagement.
Low tree canopy areas
While standards for quantifying high versus low tree canopy areas can vary, the city of Denver aims for a minimum 15% tree cover, said Mike Swanson, city forester. According to the most recent measurements from 2020, some central Denver neighborhoods have high canopy percentages, with Capitol Hill at about 20%, Cheesman Park at 30%, and Country Club with the highest of any Denver neighborhood at 37%.
But nearby neighborhoods like LoDo have as little as 3%, and Auraria at 7%.
The same measurements from 2020 show that some south Denver neighborhoods have generally high canopy percentages, with University Park at about 30%, Washington Park at 27% and Belcaro at 31%.
However, nearby neighborhoods like Baker and Overland have as little as 8%.
While total canopy is important to measure, the resilience, age and condition of existing trees is also necessary when considering the quality of an area’s tree canopy. Planting trees that are appropriate for the available space and the regional climate can affect whether trees will grow to maturity and provide shade to the neighborhood, Swanson added.
“Some neighborhoods have a lot of canopy, but the makeup of the canopy is not sustainable,” Swanson said.
Disparities in tree canopy lead to ecological differences between neighborhoods, like fewer pollinators, higher likelihood of flooding and less biodiversity, but it also has socioeconomic impacts, said Kim Yuan-Farrell, executive director of The Park People. People tend to spend more time and money in business districts lined with trees, have faster recovery times from illness when they have views of green spaces and get more daily physical exercise.
“Trees are also such a powerful point of community building and community engagement,” Yuan-Farrell added. “When people mobilize around planting activities, it builds social fabric. And in an age when we’re on our screens more and more disconnected, that is a powerful thing.”
Differences in tree canopy also derive from socioeconomic factors. Historically, neighborhoods with lower tree cover received less investment into green infrastructure like parks. That coincided with residents in those areas also experiencing higher poverty rates from decades of disinvestment and racist policies, when banks in the 20th century refused to give loans to residents in lower-income areas or ethnic enclaves.
Areas with lower tree cover and greenspace tend to also have lower property values, leaving residents vulnerable to urban renewal displacement.
“There’s been a pattern of folks who don’t have much political clout, much power, being relegated to those areas of town that also don’t see much investment,” Yuan-Farrell said. “Some of those have been very deliberate policies and practices like redlining and others have been market forces. It’s a layered and complicated history.”
In Overland’s case, areas of the neighborhood with lower tree cover are industrial and highly developed, said Greiving, who currently serves as president of the Overland Neighborhood Association. She notes that one of those areas, northeast of Evans Avenue and Santa Fe Drive, was previously occupied by the Shattuck Chemical Company, which was declared an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in 1983.
“There’s been a lot of remediation, obviously, but not a lot of remedial tree planting,” Greiving said. “Now you have a lot of apartment development and mixed apartments and retail. That corner of Overland is pretty warm.”
But sometimes planting more trees isn’t feasible because of existing development. In Auraria, for example, the college campus, sports arenas and parking lots create challenges to planting trees.
“These are long term discussions and paradigm shifts of what Denver residents and what Denver politicians and leaders truly want out of the city,” Swanson added.
Closing the gap
City departments like the Office of the City Forester, nonprofits like The Park People and local organizations like neighborhood associations are all taking steps to address the disparity in tree canopy across the city.
The City Forester is in the process of creating and releasing an Urban Forest Strategic Plan that will set goals for the city to increase and improve tree canopy, to engage in community involvement, education and outreach efforts, and to evaluate and incorporate best management practices into Denver forestry, Swanson said.
The city forester, in conjunction with the Denver Office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency, received a federal grant to bolster education efforts and encourage residents to plant trees on their private property. Part of the grant will also go towards helping residents in underserved neighborhoods maintain existing trees and remove hazardous trees as part of its Forestry Neighborhood Enhancement Program.
Efforts like this help reimagine what an urban forest can look like in a place like Denver, where the climate can be challenging for trees, Swanson said.
“You’re basically renewing Denver’s urban forest that started back in 1880 or 1890,” Swanson said. “This is a huge responsibility as a resident and as city forester. I truly believe it’s everybody’s responsibility to help out each other.”
Grieving often hears from residents in the neighborhood association about challenges they run into if they want to plant a tree, like cost, not knowing how to maintain their trees or what the requirements are for planting trees, or not having time to apply for a tree permit.
“Sometimes that can be a little intimidating for neighbors, or it slips to the bottom of their to-do list,” she added.
The city could help make the process easier by requiring new developments to have more trees and green space, distributing more information about tree maintenance and incentivizing planting trees on private property through discounted water bills, Greiving suggested.
Celebrating Earth Day and Arbor Day with tree plantings
Earth Day, on April 22, and Arbor Day, on April 24, usher in several tree planting opportunities for Denver residents.
The Park People’s Denver Digs Trees distribution event is on April 20 at Sloan’s Lake Park and the City Park Greenhouse. During the event, those who applied for a tree in the fall will receive a discounted tree sapling, and help transporting and planting the tree on their property if they need it. On the same day, The Park People offer an Earth Day tree sale, where fruiting, ornamental and shade trees are available for anyone to purchase. Interested parties can apply to be a volunteer at either event.
Overland Neighborhood Association’s annual seed giveaway is also on April 20, and its plant giveaway is on May 18, both hosted at The Table Public House.
The Park People also have resources to help residents successfully plant and maintain trees on their property, including written guides and free tree planting and care workshops.
Participating in a workshop can help residents correct any misconceptions about planting trees on their private property, like the worry that it will require a lot of water or that trees aren’t good for a dry landscape like Denver.
“People raise the really valid question of, ‘Denver wasn’t originally densely forested, like some parts of the country back east, and so should we be planting trees?’” Yuan-Farrell said. “The answer there is definitely yes. Our built environment, our city, isn’t natural in that same way, but trees provide a really important way to balance our built environment of our urban communities here.”