Residents’ Attitudes Toward Street Trees in the UK and U.S. Communities

Abstract

Research on residents’ attitudes has shown that street trees are highly valued elements of the urban environment and that their benefits far outweigh their annoyances. Much of this research was done in communities in the United States, and it is uncertain whether the findings can be generalized to other communities or countries. We compared residents’ opinions of street trees, perceptions of the benefits and annoyances trees provide, and preferences for tree size, shape, and growth rate between three communities in the United States and the United Kingdom. Overall, opinions of nearby street trees were positive and did not differ between the two UK communities and the U.S. community. Respondents in the UK communities rated annoyances as more serious, shade as less of a benefit, and physical benefits as more significant than did the residents of the U.S. community. Respondents in the two UK communities also preferred smaller trees with slower growth rates. Although these comparisons cannot be used to make inferences about differences between the entire United Kingdom and United States, they do suggest some specific ways in which community characteristics such as climate and proximity of trees to houses may contribute to variation in attitudes toward trees.

How do people perceive urban trees? Assessing likes and dislikes in relation to the trees of a city

“…In order to improve the environmental quality of cities, it is imperative to consider the perception of local people when taking decisions regarding urban green spaces (Bonnes et al 2011;Zheng et al 2011). In general, our results agree with previous studied finding links between the environment, life quality, and human behavior (Kinzig et al 2005;Schroeder et al 2006;Fuller et al 2007;Gidlof-Gunnarsson and Ohrstrom 2007;Escobedo and Chacalo 2008;Leslie et al 2010;Pluhar et al 2010;Schipperijn et al 2010). Considering the perception of citizens of the city of Morelia, between 30 and 37 years old, using the notion of social perception in a wide sense, we show that people prefer tall, leafy, shady trees (Table 4) of which the most liked are exotic to Mexico (i.e., Jacaranda mimosifolia, ICRAF 2013; Casuarina equisetifolia, ISSG 2013) and one is native (Fraxinus uhdei, ISSG 2013).…”

“…In a similar fashion, 4.5 % of the respondents who stated that trees cause damage commented that they can cause damage but still provide benefits. As in the study carried out by Schroeder et al (2006), we found that citizens perceive more benefits than annoyances from trees. Undoubtedly, all damages and non-liked tree traits represent ecosystem disservices, which have not received enough attention a Because some of the respondents did not mention any reason for choosing a scenario, while others mentioned more than one reason, numbers might add different than 100 %.…”

Symbolic meanings of ordinary city streets and their trees

“…They are affirmations of the good that is in street life, now that symbolic forms have evolved to define and order it. The personal feelings that people today express about street trees tend to be abstract and personal such as “sense of humanity and family”, “sense of community”, and “spiritual values” ( Schroeder et al, 2006 ). Where municipalities have attempted to retrofit trees into streets that had not been designed to hold them, residents have complained; those streets lacked a limen ready for planting, so planting required cutting away sidewalk space, injuring residents’ sense of territoriality over the sidewalk space ( Rae et al, 2010 ).…”

“…Urban designers writing about streets (e.g., Anderson, 1991 ; Southworth and Ben-Joseph, 2003 ; Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht, 2011 ; Mehta, 2013 ) have focused on streets’ diverse physical functions, not symbolic meanings. Among psychologists Schroeder et al (2006) pointed out that street trees have important meanings for people, but did not try to systematize them. Other psychologists have correlated urban trees with specific performance outcomes such as human health or social interaction (e.g., Coley et al, 1997 ; Wolf et al, 2020 ), or pointed out the general roles of trees in the human psyche (e.g., Schroeder, 1992 ; Dwyer et al, 1994 ; Sommer, 2003 ).…”

Resident Attitudes and Actions Toward Native Tree Species: A Case Study of Residents in Four Southern Ontario Municipalities

“…Knowledge of species, interest in nature, and nature experiences are the factors that best promote positive attitudes toward environmental issues, biodiversity, and a sustainable life style (Chawla 1999;Corcoran 1999;Palmer et al 1999;Palmberg and Kuru 2000;Lindemann-Matthies 2006;Martin et al 2013;Baur and Haase 2015;Palmberg et al 2015); these likely play a role in residents' attitudes toward native species in the urban forest. Residents generally express a positive attitude toward trees (Barro et al 1997;Lohr et al 2004;Schroeder et al 2006;Zhang et al 2007;Jones et al 2012), although Kirkpatrick et al (2012) documented a variety of attitudes toward urban trees among residents in Australia, which they divided those attitudes into seven categories: aesthetes, tree huggers, practical tree lovers, arboriphobes, native wildlife lovers, tree hazard minimizers, and tree indifferents. Moreover, desire for specific vegetated land covers varies among ethno-cultural communities and 'lifestyle groups,' and is not uniform within income classes (Fraser and Kenney 2000;Grove et al 2006).…”