Tree city

Trees and forests in and near cities proved important spaces and resources during the global pandemic for urban populations around the world. Forests became important places to recreate safely, to contemplate, and to connect with nature. As this chapter argues, few investments will pay benefits as handsomely as protecting urban trees and expanding urban forests in the future. They represent important safeguards for urban populations facing future pandemic or pandemic-like crises and also represent effective and necessary responses to increasingly serious impacts of climate change. A new vision of Forest Urbanism is emerging, and is described in this chapter, which emphasizes the protection of existing trees and forests as well as the integration of trees and forests into urban design and development. Forest Urbanism suggests that there are many new places to plant them in cities—on rooftops and balconies, on highway caps, and in converted car parking spaces, among many other places. There is a special opportunity and power in planting tiny forests in small urban spaces where they can be seen, visited, and enjoyed by residents, and become part of the restorative landscape of cities .