This tool shows Chicago's canopy and will hopefully help map where trees have been removed and replacement trees have not yet been requested or planted.
Chicago today has approximately 17.5% tree canopy cover. The city has a stated goal of 20% canopy cover by 2020. 17.5% canopy is much lower than many comparable cities. Chicago actually has the most to gain from an increased tree canopy. We know that climate change will increase average temperatures and well as make extreme weather events more common. Trees lower the ambient temperature by providing shade, clean the air and absorb water, prevent flooding and providing habitat. Areas with increased tree cover are significantly cooler. Hundreds of people have already died during heatwaves in Chicago.
Chicago was founded on a lake plain and prairie with limited canopy initially but by the mid-1800s whatever trees were here had been chopped down. The majority of street trees planted when the city was being built were elm trees which were devastated in the 60s by dutch elm disease. Many of these were replaced by ash trees which are now being attacked by the emerald ash borer beetle. Most of the ash trees on the parkway were inoculated between 2014-2016 against the beetle but this probably came too late for most to survive and we have really only postponed the decline of the ash population. They are not expected to survive long-term. The park district has already removed many of the old ash trees located in the parks.
In addition to pests, much of the Chicago region's canopy today is invasive species like buckthorn. Being invaders, these trees provide no ecosystem benefits and in fact their shade prevents new growth of native trees. Finally, unlike some wealthy north shore communities, Chicago has no tree protection ordinance. You can legally remove any tree on your property with no requirement to replace trees elsewhere.
In 2010, an urban tree canopy assessment was done by the US Department of Agriculture's Forestry Service. This map style shows the area found by the UTC to be canopy cover laid over a more recent satellite view from 2017. This should give a good idea of where trees have been removed between 2010 and 2017.
City policy today is to only replace street trees where they are requested due to the amount of care needed for the first 3 years of a newly planted tree's life. I don't think most people are aware of this. Most of the department of forestry's budget recently has been going to ash tree inoculations and removals and not planting. I believe the current waiting list for a new street tree planting is about 3 years.
There are a few organizations working to increase awareness of the issues with Chicago's trees. Chicago Region Tree Initiative through the Morton Arboretum is working to raise awareness of these issues. Openlands has a Treekeeper program that provides 24 hours of education on caring for Chicago's urban forest and Treekeeper volunteers have planted thousands of trees around Chicago. I have completed Treekeeper training myself and highly recommend it as good way to cure your tree blindness.
This project uses Mapbox to serve the maps and html5 boilerplate. Canopy data is from CMAP.
Built by Mike Bingaman