Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape

by Jill Jonnes

Overview

“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 Extinction

“Jonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life and celebrates the men and women who stood up for America’s 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 Americans—presidents, plant explorers, visionaries, citizen activists, scientists, nurserymen, and tree nerds—whose arboreal passions have shaped and ornamented the nation’s cities, from Jefferson’s day to the present
 
As nature’s 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 Jonnes’s 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143110446
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/05/2017
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	502,840
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jill Jonnes is the author of Urban Forests, Eiffel’s Tower, Conquering Gotham, Empires of Light, and South Bronx Rising. She was named a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar and has received several grants from the Ford Foundation.

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Chapter One
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Excerpted from "Urban Forests"
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Copyright © 2017 Jill Jonnes.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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Table of Contents

Introduction. "We Appreciate the Symmetry of Human and Sylvan Life" xiii

1 "So Great a Botanical Curiosity" and "The Celestial Tree": Introducing the Ginkgo and Ailanthus 1

2 "No Man Does Anything More Visibly Useful to Posterity Than He Who Plants a Tree": Inventing Arbor Day and Cities of Trees 17

3 "A Demi-God of Trees" and "The Tree Doctor": Charles Sprague Sargent and John Davey 35

4 "This Fungus Is the Most Rapid and Destructive Known": A Plague Strikes the American Chestnut 47

5 "Washington Would One Day Be Famous for Its Flowering Cherry Trees" Eliza Scidmore David Fairchild 59

6 "I Knew That There Were No Roads in China": Plant Explorers Frank Meyer E. H. Wilson 78

7 "A Poem Lovely as a Tree": Cherishing Memorial and Historic Trees 93

8 "The Two Great Essentials for an Arboretum, Soil and Money": Chicago, D.C., and Boston 101

9 "Imagine the Wiping Out of the Beautiful Avenues of Elms": Battling to Save an American Icon 115

10 "A Forest Giant Just on the Edge of Extinction!": Discovering the Dawn Redwood 132

11 "There Was No Question That People Wanted to Save This Tree": Crusading for a New American Elm 145

12 "Having Cities Work with Forces of Nature": The Rise of the New Urban Forestry 162

13 "Trees Are the Answer" John Hansel Henry Stern Deborah Gangloff George Bush 179

14 "Don't Trees Clean the Air?" Rowan Rowntree Greg McPherson David Nowak 195

15 "We Stand A Great Chance of Seeing a Return of the Stately and Valuable American Elm": Rebirth of an Iconic Tree? 214

16 "I Never Saw Such a Bug in My Life": Attack of the Asian Long-Horned Beetles 226

17 "On That Branch Was a Four-Inch Green Shoot with Leaves": Ground Zero Survivor Trees 239

18 "I Was Surprised It Was So Aggressive": Waging War on the Emerald Ash Borer 252

19 "Putting in an Urban Forest Instead of a Storm Drain": High-Tech Meets a Million Trees 270

20 "Help Restore a Lost Piece of American History": Return of the Elm 291

21 "Oh, My God! They're Really Here": Further Conquests of the Asian Beetles 305

22 "A Tree Is Shaped by Its Experiences": The Survivor Trees 326

Afterword. "The Answer Is Urban Forests" 335

Acknowledgments 347

Notes 351

Index 383

Editorial Reviews

In Urban Forests, Jill Jonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life . . . [and] celebrates [the] men and women who stood up for America’s city trees over the past two centuries. . . . Ms. Jonnes offers an authoritative and admirably nontechnical account of the past, present and future of our cities’ trees.”
—Gerard Helferich, The Wall Street Journal
 
“America’s cities are full of trees but despite encountering them all the time we tend to take them for granted or know little about their natural history and civic virtues. But in a new book, Urban Forests, author Jill Jonnes says trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cityscapes and they are the dominant component of what is now called green infrastructure.”
—Diane Rehm, The Diane Rehm Show NPR

“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. . . . It’s no wonder then, that cities like New York, Denver and Sacramento have already invested heavily in urban planting. Now Jonnes argues that others should follow their lead. It’s time, she writes, ‘to get serious about creating the lushest tree canopies we can nurture.’”
—Sara Begley, Time

“Next time you’re outside, look up. Trees are so ubiquitous that it’s easy to take them for granted. But Urban Forests makes you stop and pay attention to the ‘living landmarks’ standing tall in America’s cities. From Thomas Jefferson’s time to present day, Jill Jonnes explores the essential roles trees play in urban centers—filtering air, providing habitat, offering shade, calming nerves and more. I loved this book because it’s both for history lovers and for tree devotees. It’s a good read—best done under the canopy of your favorite tree.”
—Jeanine Herbst, NPR Books

“Jonnes deftly outlines the mission to plant trees and quantify their utility, and the campaigns to eviscerate pests that have ailed them. And there’s a strong, data-backed case for city trees . . . But beyond quantifying those dollars-and-sense benefits, the book soars when Jonnes teases out the profound emotional connection city dwellers feel towards the nature that surrounds them . . . Perhaps the most affecting portions of Jonnes’s book delve into trees as symbols of resilience . . . as much as trees can be transportive, inviting imagination to alight on the branches arcing towards the sky, they can also anchor us. Trees, with their graceful grit, embody some of the very best traits that we can hope to emulate.”
—Jessica Leigh Hester, The Atlantic CityLab

“The deforestation that ran rampant in the United States through the nineteenth century spurred a band of doughty dendrologists and politicians to forest the cities. Jill Jonnes’ stimulating history chronicles their collective story, from William Hamilton (who reintroduced Ginkgo Biloba to North America millennia after it was glaciated out) to the many scientists struggling to control blights and beetles. Today, Jonnes shows, despite trees’ measurable benefits for human well-being and microclimate regulation, urban forestation remains at risk from short-sighted redevelopment.”
—Barbara Kiser, Nature
 
“Even if you can’t tell a fir from a pine, you probably judge the quality of your surroundings by its trees. For city residents, trees are perhaps the most accessible form of the natural world—but that wasn’t always the case. . . . Jonnes traces the history of America’s urban trees over two centuries—they were once viewed as an economic commodity, but people later invested personal and patriotic meaning in individual trees and in the act of planting. . . . Urban Forests goes beyond trees, exploring a nation’s changing relationship with the whole natural world.”
—Jeremy B. Yoder, Sierra Club Magazine

“Urban Forests contains some of the most readable and insightful arboreal prose I have ever come across. Jonnes dives deeply into trees and their roles in American cities through various eras of history. The text is laced with facts, dates, and figures gleaned from recent scientific studies that, rather than making one’s eyes glaze over, inspire a profound respect for these resilient trees and the people who champion them. . . . A spellbinding storyteller, Jonnes relates the heartbreaking stories of America’s most devastating arboreal tragedies—the annihilation of native elm, chestnut, and now ash trees by introduced pests and diseases. She counterbalances vivid scenes of entire neighborhoods being clear cut with the diligent efforts of the people trying to save these trees from extinction. Through these and other equally compelling anecdotes, the book elucidates the powerful emotional connection humans have with trees.”
—Guy Sternberg, The American Gardner

“A fascinating slice of both urban and natural history that tree lovers and everyone interested in city life will enjoy.”
—Booklist
 
“This book deserves great interest. . . . Scientific without being tedious and political only in the sense of our responsibility to and respect for nature (or lack thereof), the narrative is sure to fascinate nature lovers and natural scientists alike. . . . A lovingly written book that should appeal to most city dwellers and all tree lovers.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“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 Extinction

From the Publisher

08/01/2016
Environmental scholar Jonnes (Eiffel’s Tower) adopts a chronological and wide-reaching approach in explaining the logistical and political work done in the 19th and 20th centuries to establish, expand, understand, and celebrate the value and importance of the urban forests of America. Often taken for granted as a public resource, the “millions of trees found in any city’s streets, parks, cemeteries, campuses, yards, industrial areas, and vacant lots” have required great efforts to maintain them against the ravages of age, disease, and development. Jonnes often focuses on notable human individuals—popularizers of imported species, brilliant and battling researchers, explorers, politicians, and grassroots activists. But in the story of the relationships among trees, the mental and physical health of city dwellers, and the infrastructure of cities themselves, she also makes room for individual arboreal entities such as the Wethersfield elm and the 9/11 Survivor Tree; anchor species, including the chestnut and the American elm; and dramatic villains such as Dutch elm disease and the Asian long-horned beetle. Despite the book’s lack of explicit activism, readers will find that Jonnes’s appreciative attention to detail organically nurtures a newfound appreciation for our living arboreal neighbors and for the concerted determination it has taken to protect them. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

2016-07-19
A comprehensive look at the trees of American cities.Though Jonnes’ (Eiffel's Tower: And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count, 2009, etc.) title may not pique great interest, this book deserves it; indeed, no one who has loved a single tree will be able to set it aside. Scientific without being tedious and political only in the sense of our responsibility to and respect for nature (or lack thereof), the narrative is sure to fascinate nature lovers and natural scientists alike. In her study of who brought new species from distant lands and, more importantly, shared them with such prolific collectors as Thomas Jefferson and William Hamilton, she traces the important scientific studies from Colonial times to the present. Tree lovers through history are as varied as the trees—e.g., the 18-year-old student who founded TreePeople in the early 1970s or John Hansel, the director of the Elm Research Institute. In quantifying the healthful effects of trees on the human environment, scientists have measured actual energy and dollar savings, as trees absorb rainwater and often save sewers from overflowing. They also affect air quality, save energy, cool temperatures, and absorb surface runoff. Jonnes diligently follows the work in large cities, especially Sacramento, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, where the Climate Project established that “trees should be regarded as essential green infrastructure.” Unfortunately, the useful scientific information went mostly to waste when politicians lost interest. Equally interesting, and certainly frightening, is the author’s coverage of significant threats to trees, including Dutch elm disease and the emerald ash borer. The damage by these blights has become so bad that clear-cutting is often the only way to control it. Thankfully, important work has been done to improve better strains that withstand the attacks, but the effects have been widespread, and replacement plantings are insufficient. A lovingly written book that should appeal to most city dwellers and all tree lovers.

Kirkus Reviews