Many world cities want to expand the number of urban trees. How this expansion occurs should consider what people expect from trees based on how they experience and perceive these trees. Therefore, we need a better understanding of how people’s perceptions of urban trees may relate to the abundance of urban trees. This research examined whether people’s satisfaction with urban trees and satisfaction with the management of those trees were related to objective measures of greenery such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), percent tree canopy cover, and the Viewshed Greenness Visibility Index (VGVI) for trees. We used a demographic and geographically representative survey of 223 residents in Toronto, Canada, and calculated NDVI, canopy cover, and VGVI at three neighborhood sizes. We analyzed the data using generalized linear regression. We found that canopy cover and VGVI had a strong positive association with satisfaction with urban trees. The associations were stronger at larger neighborhood scales. There were no statistically significant associations with NDVI or satisfaction with the management of urban trees.

Many world cities want to expand the number of urban trees. How this expansion occurs should consider what people expect from trees based on how they experience and perceive these trees. Therefore, we need a better understanding of how people perceptually respond to urban tree abundance. This research examined whether people’s satisfaction with urban trees and satisfaction with the management of those trees were related to objective measures of greenery such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), percent tree canopy cover, and the Viewshed Greenness Visibility Index (VGVI) for trees. We used a demographically and geographically representative survey of 223 residents in Toronto, Canada, and calculated NDVI, canopy cover, and VGVI at three neighbourhood sizes. We analysed the data using generalized linear regression. We found that canopy cover and VGVI had a positive association with satisfaction with urban trees. The associations were comparatively stronger at larger neighbourhood scales than at smaller scales. There were no statistically significant associations with NDVI or satisfaction with the management of urban trees.