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By Susan Haigh

The Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. 鈥� While Ameen Taylor feels fortunate he has a cooling tree cover in the front and back yards of his Detroit home, he knows it’s a different story for many residents of his hometown where neighborhoods often have little to no shade.

鈥淭o me, 70 degrees is fair weather, but when you’re walking somewhere or you’re around a neighborhood that don’t have trees, it will feel like it’s like 87, 90 degrees; that’s what it feel like,鈥� Taylor said. 鈥淵ou’re exposed to more sun than you are shade.鈥�

Like many cities in the U.S., Detroit has areas that are packed with large amounts of impervious surfaces and heat-absorbing infrastructure like roads and bridges. Coupled with low levels of cooling tree cover, or canopy, those surfaces can make cities dangerously hotter than suburbs.

Such an inequity of tree cover is behind the historic $1.5 billion included in the Inflation Reduction Act for the federal Forest Service Urban & Community Forestry Program to fund tree-planting projects over the next decade. With a focus on underserved communities, the initiative marks a massive increase from the roughly $36 million distributed annually to the program.

Urban forestry advocates, who’ve argued for years about the benefits of trees in cities, see this moment as an opportunity to transform underserved neighborhoods that have grappled with dirtier air, dangerously high temperatures and other challenges because they don’t have a leafy canopy overhead. Advocates also predict this is the beginning of a long-term financial commitment to trees, especially amid聽dire about climate change.

鈥淐ity trees are not just having a moment,鈥� said Dan Lambe, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation. 鈥淚n many ways, this is more than a moment in the sun. This is, I believe, the new normal.鈥�

The massive federal investment recognizes trees are essential for communities 鈥� 鈥渘ot just a nice-to-have; they’re a must-have,鈥� he said.

Trees help suck up heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce erosion and flooding. That’s important when considering heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has proposed spending $500,000 in remaining COVID-19 relief funds, money he hopes to be complemented by the new federal funds, to pay for plantings in underserved urban neighborhoods. Hartford, the state’s capital, has a tree canopy in just a quarter of its 11,490 acres.

鈥淚 just drive around the state, I drive around Hartford, I see places where 鈥� imagine if we had just 30 trees in this empty lot 鈥� what it means for clean air, what it means for beauty, what it means for shade,鈥� he said.

Historically redlined cities like Hartford, where banks denied or avoided providing loans because of the racial makeup, are up to 13 degrees hotter than neighborhoods not redlined, said Lauren Marshall, senior manager for program innovation at the Arbor Day Foundation. With less access to nature, many residents in these communities didn’t have the option to escape the heat and socially distance outside in shade during the pandemic, she said.

鈥淚 remember the summer of 2020 spending a lot of time outdoors because it was the only way we could see the people we loved,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd I live in a neighborhood with a ton of tree canopy. And for a lot of people, that wasn’t the case.鈥�

The pandemic, coupled with the racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd, brought a lot of attention to the tree canopy inequity issue, Marshall said. Many cities and towns are now using a聽聽developed by American Forests to target tree plantings in neighborhoods most in need.

鈥淎cross the board, in every state and in our state, we have underinvested in our urban tree canopy,鈥� said Hilary Franz, Washington’s commissioner of public lands.

Seattle is planting 8,000 trees over five years on public and private properties and 40,000 in parks and natural areas. The initiative is partly financed by federal funds. The city also plans to require three trees be planted for every healthy, site-appropriate tree removed from its properties.

Some communities plan to use the federal funds for tree maintenance and development of a tree care workforce, especially where workers have barriers to employment, such as a criminal record. The nation’s current tree care labor pool is aging and needs more workers, said Joel Pannell, vice president of urban forest policy at American Forests. That workforce also is mostly white men.

鈥淎s folks are retiring and getting out of the workforce, there’s a tremendous need to get a new cadre of people who represent the communities where the work needs to be done,鈥� he said.

Taylor is one of 300 workers who will plant 75,000 trees in Detroit over the next five years. He recently helped plant a dozen maple trees, carefully hand-digging holes to avoid underground lines. Taylor, who was formerly incarcerated, is proud of the work he is doing.

鈥淚t just looks vacant without trees,鈥� he said.

Planting trees in urban areas is not new. In 2007, New York City’s mayor at the time, Michael Bloomberg, launched a successful effort to plant 1 million trees. A former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, launched a similar effort to plant 1 million trees by the end of his first term in 2009, but many died because they had to be planted on private land where watering and care fell mostly to residents.

But the cost of this federal tree-planting program has received some political pushback from lawmakers who’ve likened it to pork-barrel spending.

Lora Martens, the urban tree program manager in Phoenix’s Office of Heat Response and Mitigation, acknowledged the amount of available money is 鈥渒ind of wild.鈥� But she predicted it will have 鈥渁 significant impact鈥� on Phoenix 鈥� considered the hottest large city in the U.S. 鈥� and the surrounding metro area. Last summer was the for heat-associated fatalities in Arizona’s largest county.

Phoenix hopes to expand its shaded, mile-long 鈥渃ool corridor鈥� pathways; initiate more neighborhood tree-planting on private property; maintain the city’s 鈥渦rban forest鈥� for the long term; and work with other communities and the state’s nursery association to address the tree care workforce shortage.

Also, a key goal is to nearly double the tree canopy in the city’s underserved neighborhoods, Martens said.

Brittany Peake knows firsthand how trees can transform a neighborhood. The three-bedroom home she purchased in Greer, South Carolina, came with no trees on the property, which formerly was part of a mobile home community.

TreesUpstate, a nonprofit, asked Peake last year if she’d like to get involved in its free tree-planting program. There are now five trees on her lot, including a swamp white oak that has already reached six feet tall. Peake said she’s looking forward to birds nesting in the tree and expects at least one of her four children to eventually scale its branches.

鈥淢y husband told me as a kid he actually climbed a couple oak trees,鈥� she said. 鈥淚’m sure that my third son is going to be a climber like his daddy is.鈥�

Editor’s note: AP writers Mike Householder in Detroit and Manuel Valdes in Seattle contributed to this report.