Trees are good for Sacramento.

The spaces they occupy act as buffers for pedestrians on sidewalks, and the pollutants they absorb ensure cleaner air for us to breathe.

City officials understand this and hope to bring more healthy trees into our tree canopy, starting with the Sacramento Urban Forest Plan. The plan’s main goal is to increase tree canopy size throughout the city. There are currently 1 million trees within city limits. The Sacramento Urban Forest Plan calls for increasing the city’s tree canopy size by 35 percent by 2045. To do this, the city would need to plant 25,000 trees annually through 2045. The city has a $2 million grant, but that’s not nearly enough, and the city is struggling with budget shortfalls. To make this plan a reality, city leaders will need to find partnerships and pots of money elsewhere.

This is an important topic because one thing I noticed during my time in Sacramento is that the treetops that adorn our beautiful city are also an indicator of inequality.

For example, affluent neighborhoods like Land Park are characterized by lush tree canopies that are lacking in low- to middle-income neighborhoods like Meadowview, Del Paso Heights, Parkway, and Valley Hi, where there is much less shade and summer heat is felt more severely.

A map created by the Sacramento Tree Foundation that maps tree canopy in relation to population shows a glaring lack of trees in neighborhoods where many people of color live. This disparity has developed over decades.

In 1960, the city began mandating tree planting in new residential areas. But in 1979, Proposition 13 was passed, which reduced the tax dollars that could be used for government services such as the maintenance of public and private trees. At that point, the burden of caring for these trees fell to individual neighborhoods.

When these trees died, they did not die in the neighborhoods that lacked the means to plant trees. Trees were planted in the neighborhoods that could afford it.

A simple trip to Franklin Boulevard in South Sacramento showed me that not every part of the city lives up to its nickname “City of Trees.”

Opinion

Justice with trees

I live in Midtown and trees are planted everywhere. Every sidewalk, every park, and every street is blessed with their presence.

“In Sacramento, the sun hits the trees just right,” I think to myself every day as I ride my bike to work along 26th Street. I pass parks where homeless people use the trees and sleep under them. They are more than just an accent in the landscape. They are the main attraction.

Unfortunately, it is an attraction that not everyone in the city gets to experience often.

Walking along Franklin Boulevard, one thing was clear: It’s damn hot. Yes, it’s been hot all over Sacramento lately. But the lack of a tree canopy to shelter people in the heat only makes the heat worse. The concrete sidewalk collected all the heat from the sun, turning the sidewalk into a source of heat that might have been mitigated by shade.

While walking through the neighborhood on Franklin Blvd. I came across a few vendors who were each using the only two trees in the area for shade.. Further down Franklin Street, I saw Curtis Valencia on his porch with his grandson. He and his grandson are shaded by a Chinese camphor tree that grows in the middle of his front yard. As a retired government employee, Valencia knows the importance of trees and remembers the storm in February that ripped 325 trees from their foundations.

Valencia lives in a tree desert, a part of the city with relatively few trees and low-income households.

In the area where Valencia lives, 67% of residents are non-white and the median income is just over $39,000. According to statistics from ZipRecruiter, this median income is $27,000 less than the average salary in the entire city.

The city is responsible for maintaining more than 100,000 of the millions of trees and relies on nonprofits and homeowners to ensure the growth of all the trees.

Sacramento depends on trees

In the movement for more tree planting in Sacramento, equity must not be lost. A survey conducted in November 2023 by real estate website Redfin found that Sacramento is the most popular place for relocating homebuyers. More people means more trees. This movement to increase our tree canopy is great, but as our city grows, it shouldn’t forget people like Valencia and his grandson who want to live the good life in this city. But that can’t happen without a healthy, robust and diverse tree canopy.

Trees are Sacramento’s unsung heroes. They provide the backdrop for an Instagram-worthy photo and just looking at them can relieve stress.

Like the trees that cover our beautiful city, justice is rooted in the foundation of our community.

Our future efforts must be focused on ensuring that these roots remain strong.