The Florida city of Tampa is a world leader for trees. According to calculations by the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), more than one third (36.1%) of the city is given over to tree cover.
The arboreal city tops MIT’s Treepedia list, which measures canopy cover in cities, closely followed by Singapore (29.3%), Oslo (28.8%), and Sydney and Vancouver (both 25.9%). MIT’s home city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, meanwhile, scores 25.3%.
We are seeing a surge in attention around urban trees around the worldDan Lambe, president of Arbor Day
The Treepedia study is not designed to be comprehensive – it only features 27 cities that MIT researchers selected out of curiosity to see how very different places compare (it has since made its code freely available online so others can calculate their own city’s tree coverage).
However, it reflects a growing awareness of the value of urban trees. City-dwellers have always appreciated tree cover, a fact recognised in the premium prices for properties on tree-lined streets and those adjacent to leafy parks. As the world becomes both hotter and increasingly urbanised, the importance of trees for both climate regulation and personal wellbeing is increasingly well-recognised.