Minneapolis ranked in the top 10 for urban forests
Photo Credit: Anthony Arrigo
KMSP - Americanforest.org just announced Minneapolis is on its top ten list for urban forests, adding the city to the many top 10 lists it’s already on like “World’s Cleanest City” and “America’s Fittest City”. There were two major deciding factors in their decision. First, the abundance of parks. On average, the city has one every 6 blocks adding plenty of tree canopy potential along with recreation activity sites for those hiking, biking, canoeing, swimming, etc… Second, the total tree canopy of the city is 31 percent, which is just 6.5 percent shy of the potential canopy of the city at 37.5 percent, the lowest spread of any city on the list. It’s estimated that Minneapolis’ urban forest has a structural value of 756 million dollars and also reduces energy use by 216,000 dollars a year.
The city of Minneapolis has roughly 979,000 trees which remove 384 tons of pollution annually and store more than 250,000 tons of carbon. They are valued at 756 million dollars. The most common species of trees are the green ash, american elm, and box elder.
Other cities that made the top 10 list include Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland Oregon, Sacramento California, Denver, Washington DC, New York City, Austin, and Charlotte. While the website doesn’t specify specific order for its top 10, I think we all know who number 1 is.