In these last few months I've done a lot of reading and thinking and talking about urban greenery and the new initiatives that are trying to increase the prevalence of that greenery in New York City. I did not arrive at the topic as an unbiased observer; actually, since I come from a rural background that I often miss and probably idealize, my sympathies were always on the side of those people who want to bring us more trees, and in this way bring the countryside, which I miss, into the city.

And I've been impressed by the rigor with which scientists at the Parks Department pursue hard data in an effort to quantify the benefits of trees and greenery. Although we don't often think of scientists working directly for the city government, they are there - trying to determine not just whether trees clean the air, but exactly how much they do or don't clean the air; not just whether proximity to parks affects asthma rates, but by exactly how proximity to parks affects asthma rates. I found that all the people behind the initiatives - whether scientists or more quotidian managers and workers - are enthusiastic, inquisitive, and very, very into urban forestry.

But I also understand the feelings of the opposition now, at least a little. Of the hundreds of complaints regarding street trees that I read, some were justified (You're putting a tree pit right in front of my door and I won't be able to get my wheelchair out), but most seemed either like a protest against any change at all (I've never had a tree and I don't want one now), or a protest against the perceived burden of future maintenance (I don't want to rake the leaves). I can't help but sympathize with that last one. If you've never had a tree before, it could be irritating to have the city give you one and tell you that you have to rake the leaves. But it seems so obvious to me that it's worth the little bit of trouble. (After all, they only drop their leaves once a year.)

And the return on the investment can be huge. One day during my internship, I went out with a Brooklyn forester to tag along while he checked on street tree plantings and dead tree complaints and various other urban forestry tasks. As we watched a big machine opening tree pits in a sidewalk somewhere in Bedford-Stuyvesant, he described the day he surveyed that site for planting, sometime this past summer. It had been an intensely hot day, and he said the street was like a heat funnel, with the blinding sun glaring off the pavement and reflecting from the plain concrete buildings. Now, though, that street is being lined with hopeful-looking little trees. One day, in fifteen or twenty years, on a hot day like that, just the shade those trees provide will make them seem like they're worth a hundred times any trouble they might cause.

Thinking about things like that has made me appreciate the urban foresters, who went about their work pretty much unseen until MillionTreesNYC put city tree-planting in the spotlight. And aside from having new eyes for every tree I pass on the street these days, I hope that my connections in the Parks Department will enable me to keep up-to-date on the latest happenings in the world of city foresters. It's not even out of the question that I might become one myself some day.