num_pages: 394
description: Far-ranging and deeply researched Urban Forests reveals the beauty and significance of the trees around us.  Elizabeth Kolbert Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth ExtinctionJonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life and celebrates the men and women who stood up for Americas city trees over the past two centuries. . . . An authoritative account. Gerard Helferich The Wall Street Journal We all know that trees can make streets look prettier. But in her new book Urban Forests  Jill Jonnes explains how they make them safer as well. Sara Begley Time Magazine A celebration of urban trees and the Americanspresidents plant explorers visionaries citizen activists scientists nurserymen and tree nerdswhose arboreal passions have shaped and ornamented the nations cities from Jeffersons day to the present As natures largest and longest-lived creations trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space cool the air soothe our psyches and connect us to nature and our past. Today four-fifths of Americans live in or near urban areas surrounded by millions of trees of hundreds of different species. Despite their ubiquity and familiarity most of us take trees for granted and know little of their fascinating natural history or remarkable civic virtues.Jill Jonness Urban Forests tells the captivating stories of the founding mothers and fathers of urban forestry in addition to those arboreal advocates presently using the latest technologies to illuminate the value of trees to public health and to our urban infrastructure. The book examines such questions as the character of American urban forests and the effect that tree-rich landscaping might have on commerce crime and human well-being. For amateur botanists urbanists environmentalists and policymakers Urban Forests will be a revelation of one of the greatest most productive and most beautiful of our natural resources.
language: English
title: Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape
publisher: Viking