Municipal forestry programs in the United States have been the subject of dozens of surveys over the past 40 years that offer valuable insight into what is occurring now and act as a point of reference in the future. Researchers surveyed home-rule municipalities (pop. 5,000 or greater) in Texas, U.S. to assess the commonality of the components of a municipal forestry program, municipal spending on urban forestry, and amount of assistance received from the Texas A&M Forest Service. Spending on urban forestry in Texas cities averaged USD $4.88 per capita overall. Basic tree ordinances, tree boards, non-profit tree advocacy groups, and proactive maintenance cycles were all fairly common. Urban forest management plans and tree inventories were very uncommon. About 70% of municipal forestry programs are housed in their cities’ Parks and Recreation Department, with the majority of the remainder occurring in their Public Works Department. The level of assistance received by municipalities from the Texas A&M Forest Service is consistent with the budget priorities and mission statement of that organization, which focuses on delivering technical and educational assistance over financial assistance. A lack of recent national trends to compare against greatly hampers understanding the efforts of Texas municipalities relative to other states. However, identifying current trends in Texas offers value to the Texas A&M Forest Service to understand the effect of their service delivery strategy. Urban foresters and city managers can also use these results to compare themselves against their peers, a common practice in setting municipal budgets and policy.

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Building new homes on wooded lots is common in the upper Midwest, United States. Existing trees are often left behind during construction to become part of the future landscape. A study conducted in 1980 found that homebuilders in Portage County, Wisconsin, U.S. generally had a poor understanding of how construction activities could impact the health of trees intended to be preserved. Researchers replicated that study 27 years later by surveying homebuilders in the same region to see how their tree preservation knowledge and use of construction activities have changed during that time. The results indicate few construction activities changed significantly, showing that little has changed overall to improve tree preservation. Even though builders significantly improved their knowledge of the negative effects that storage of fill soil on roots poses to tree preservation, they also significantly increased usage of that very same activity. Builders almost never consulted a tree preservation expert and thought doing so was the least important activity when making tree preservation decisions. Interest in a tree preservation training workshop was limited. Unless pressured by consumer demand or regulation, builders will probably not improve their tree preservation knowledge, change their construction activities, or include tree experts anywhere in the process.

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