All it took was a bout of catastrophic weather to remind us what we take for granted: Trees are treasures.
It’s been heartbreaking to drive around and see the damage. Primary limbs shorn off half-century-old pecan trees. Live oak trunks split down the middle. Cedar elm torn out of the ground by their roots.
In a city that prefers to pour concrete than preserve what nature has given us, the sky-high piles of tree debris on block after block is sickening.
Thank goodness, trees are replaceable. What better time than now to write about initiatives by the Texas Trees Foundation to plant thousands of new ones.
The Dallas-based nonprofit has been on a roll the last couple of weeks when it comes to improving the health of the city and its residents. In late May, Texas Trees unveiled the design for a huge greening project in the Southwestern Medical District, which is the largest heat island in Dallas.
D Magazine’s Matt Goodman did a great job detailing the project, which, he wrote, dares “to reengineer a neighborhood of more than 1,000 acres where patients can find solace in nature.”
The multi-year project will begin in late 2025. It will green two miles of public right-of-way and transform the aging concrete “clover leaf” area of Harry Hines Boulevard into a 10-acre park.
Today I have news of a second big effort by Texas Trees: the $15 million South Dallas Greening Initiative, which will bring thousands of trees to the almost 50,000 residents of Fair Park, Mill City, Queen City, Wheatley Place and adjacent neighborhoods.
Texas Trees secured an Inflation Reduction Act grant for the work through the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry program. The nonprofit will partner for five years with South Dallas residents and community-based groups.
Janette Monear, Texas Trees president and CEO, told me the goal “is not just plopping down trees.” It’s being able to move the needle on human health and well being.
“If it’s done right, the trees are better and the people are better,” Monear said.
The late Trammell Crow founded the Texas Trees Foundation in 1982. Its mission has grown considerably, especially since Monear came on board 17 years ago. Once primarily focused on trees in city parks, the foundation is devoted to curbing urban heat islands while adding to the existing canopy.
Trees don’t just make us happy. They improve air and water quality, mitigate the urban heat index and alleviate noise pollution. Research also suggests they can improve mental health, lower stress and anxiety, and reduce obesity and cardiovascular disease.
Two years ago, Texas Trees created a Dallas Tree Equity planting map to show where investment is most needed. The research combined data on urban heat and tree canopy with socioeconomic and health information.
“Unsurprisingly, people like those in South Dallas who are disadvantaged have higher incidence of illness and being impacted by urban heat,” Monear said. “There we see highest need intersecting with smallest tree canopy.”
The canopy in the neighborhoods where Texas Trees will focus is as low as 14%, compared with the nonprofit’s 37% goal. Temperatures in heat islands, expanses of concrete that trap and radiate hot air, can be 11 degrees hotter than elsewhere in the city.
Every tree has value, Monear explained, but strategic planting is economically smarter and smarter for people’s health. For instance, adding trees to a park where many already exist is less significant than in a schoolyard with no shade or in tree-starved neighborhoods where people suffer higher rates of asthma.
Monear also pointed to the common practice of planting trees in a row, usually 30 to 35 feet apart. “Those don’t provide a cooler sidewalk experience,” she said. Instead, in the medical district and South Dallas projects, trees will be planted, whenever possible, in mini groves.
“In clumps, they graft root systems and share nutrients and water and live almost twice as long as if planted in rows,” Monear said.
With funding in hand for the South Dallas project, the first step is community meetings to hear what residents want. Texas Trees’ work, if not the nonprofit itself, is known in South Dallas because it is responsible for most of the street trees in the nearby Jubilee Park neighborhood.
A big chunk of the $15 million will go toward assessment, planting and maintenance of trees. The initiative also will provide resident-friendly urban forestry education and career training through the nonprofit’s workforce program.
Tremayne Allums, who lives in South Dallas and has helped the nonprofit with previous plantings, told me the initiative will make a big difference in people’s lives. “There’s lots of traffic coming through here and not a lot of cover,” he said. “I’d like to be able to help provide shade for people who are so much in need of it.”
Billy Lane, a longtime champion of South Dallas and executive director of Innercity Community Development Corporation, told me he’s thrilled about the trees initiative because it has the same goal as ICDC — improving the quality of life in the neighborhood.
It’s little wonder, he said, the area is among the city’s worst heat islands. “There’s a lot of asphalt, and even when there’s been space for greenery, it hasn’t been developed to benefit neighborhoods.”
In addition to providing a measure of the environmental justice South Dallas deserves, Lane said, the greening will bring economic benefits. “Just as ICDC demonstrates, when you create spaces that are nice and high quality, it attracts other development.”
He also knows better housing and green spaces could bring in development that drives out current residents. “That’s the double-edged sword that ICDC must manage,” he said. “We want to be on our toes so we make sure those who live here have a safe space they aren’t pushed out of.”
The affordable housing crisis is real, Lane said, but so is the need for pockets of accessible and shady outdoor spaces. His nonprofit plans to build eight townhomes on Spring Avenue in the Mill City neighborhood, and Texas Trees has offered to create a public space along a strip of the property.
“You could put additional housing in there,” Lane said, “but green space needs to be represented too. It would be a community space, not gated, for everyone to enjoy. We need that here.”