From the data, planners outlined representative plots of different types of tree cover. A local leadership group and student volunteers then went out on foot to assess the size, health and species of all trees on the sample plots. The Pacific Northwest is not alone in finding that a booming economy and robust development mean fewer trees. American Forests has found significant tree loss from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s in every area it has surveyed. In Atlanta, sprawl-induced air quality problems have grown so severe that last year the federal government banned new highway construction until the area can come up with a better plan to manage growth.
People are very, very upset.
Last month, Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes appointed Joel Cowan, an environmentalist and developer, to lead the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, a commission formed to mitigate the region's transportation woes. Cowan has been meeting with American Forests to investigate using CITYgreen and tree planting to improve air quality. The decline in the ranks of urban forests comes at a time when rural areas are becoming more wooded than they were at the turn of the century, due to a decrease in farming. But today, most people in the United States live in cities and the suburbs being built around them. Moll and other foresters say it's possible to preserve existing trees by building around them, and they encourage homeowners to plant new trees in barren subdivision yards and redeveloped city blocks.