We are neighbors in East Fort Worth that want to encourage the City of Fort Worth to find a balance between development and the environment. There are various examples around Fort Worth showing the right balance between conservation and development.

Trees are important for mental health: (Beyer, K. M., Kaltenbach, A., Szabo, A., Bogar, S., Nieto, F. J., & Malecki, K. M. (2014). Exposure to neighborhood green space and mental health: evidence from the survey of the health of Wisconsin. International journal of environmental research and public health, 11(3), 3453-3472.)

Trees provide additional home value: (Anderson, L. M., & Cordell, H. K. (1988). Influence of trees on residential property values in Athens, Georgia (USA): A survey based on actual sales prices. Landscape and Urban Planning, 15(1-2), 153-164.)

Trees help urban air quality and health: (Nowak, D. J., Hirabayashi, S., Bodine, A., & Hoehn, R. (2013). Modeled PM2. 5 removal by trees in ten US cities and associated health effects. Environmental pollution, 178, 395-402.)

All this to say: People need homes AND trees, and should not have to choose between them.

Is it not melodramatic to speak of urban deforestation. Most people find time-lapse pictures of the Amazon showing the remorseless loss of trees very worrying. In cities like Fort Worth, we are starting from a much smaller number of trees, but we are still losing an alarming proportion every year. This is something shown very clearly in year-by-year aerial shots of DFW. Let’s not sit on our hands and watch as, for one ‘compromising’ reason after another, our neighborhood trees are gradually taken away.