PUBLIC PLACES : Protecting the Urban Forest

Pasadena is famous for many reasons, among them its urban forest. “There are about 52,000 street trees, valued at $75 million,” says John Alderson, the city’s park and forestry administrator who oversaw a computer inventory of these leafy assets. The city nurtures its groves: In four recent projects, Pasadena accommodated trees by narrowing roadways and, in one revolutionary case, replaced a concrete sidewalk with one of decomposed granite on a two-block stretch of State Street. They’ve also bowed curbs around trees and ramped up sidewalks to avoid cutting roots.

Alderson notes the importance of trees. “Psychologists say being around grass and trees is necessary for people being happy. Trees contribute something like 10% to property values, take pollutants out of the air, and but an even greater contribution is to reduce heat significantly. so there’s less demand for air conditioning, electricity, power generation and, ultimately, less smog.”

The recession eliminated funds for replacing lost trees or planting new ones. But Pasadena has been successful in getting a $211,000 Urban Tree Planting grant from county Proposition A funds. By providing $124,000 in matching contributions, the city, with the help of the nonprofit group Pasadena Beautiful, will plant 800 new trees and simultaneously provide job training for low-income Pasadena youth this year.

ALICE FROST KENNEDY

Urban Forest Advisory Committee, City of Pasadena

It’s extraordinary for a city to go a little backward toward the days when everything wasn’t paved over.

A few years ago, the city was to do a massive repair of sidewalks. State Street is a block in an old neighborhood, with lovely big camphor trees that had been in there 60 to 70 years.

But the sidewalk was tipping badly. The roots would have been so severely cut that probably none of those trees would have survived. Some of us managed to get an Urban Forestry Advisory Committee started and to object to what was happening. Finally decomposed granite was put in, the roadway was narrowed a few feet and the sidewalk was totally taken out.

Decomposed granite is very natural; water can percolate into the ground. There’s still a sidewalk on one side of the street, but many people walk on the granite in the shade of the big trees. It’s like being out in a much nicer place.

MADELYN GLICKFELD

Academic director, Streisand Center for Conservancy Studies, Malibu

The Pasadena watershed is part of the Los Angeles River watershed. Trees aren’t the whole solution to the watershed problem, but less paved surfaces and more ways to absorb water are. Even in drought situations, because we’ve paved over so much of our watershed, our flood control systems are overburdened, so we’re spending billions of dollars to raise the levees on the L.A. River.

The idea of unpaving instead is wonderful.

Public Places columnist Jane Spiller welcomes suggestions for places that are publicly accessible and free. Contact her c/o Voices.