The American city of Atlanta, Georgia has a reputation as the "city in a forest" due to its abundance of trees, uncommon among major cities. Tree coverage was estimated at 47.9% for 2008, in a 2014 study. [1]
The American city of Atlanta, Georgia has a reputation as the "city in a forest" due to its abundance of trees, uncommon among major cities. Tree coverage was estimated at 47.9% for 2008, in a 2014 study. [1]
Atlanta, often called a "city in a forest" and a "tree haven", has a large tree canopy covering much of its area. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The city's main street is named after a tree, and beyond the Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead business districts, the skyline gives way to a dense canopy of woods that spreads into the suburbs. The city's tree coverage percentage was estimated at 36% in a 2004 model. [7] A 2010 study estimated its tree coverage at 50-53%. [8]
Atlanta's tree coverage does not go unnoticed—it was the main reason cited by National Geographic in naming Atlanta a "Place of a Lifetime": [9]
For a sprawling city with the nation’s ninth-largest metro area, Atlanta is surprisingly lush with trees—magnolias, dogwoods, Southern pines, and magnificent oaks. [10]
The city's lush tree canopy, which filters out pollutants and cools sidewalks and buildings, has increasingly been under assault from man and nature due to heavy rains, drought, aged forests, new pests, and urban construction. A 2001 study found that Atlanta's heavy tree cover declined from 48% in 1974 to 38% in 1996. This loss of tree canopy resulted in a 33% increase in stormwater runoff, and a loss of 11 million pounds of pollutants removed annually, a value of approximately $28 million per year. [11] Due to a historic drought in the late 2000s, Atlanta lost trees at an unprecedented rate. For example, Piedmont Park lost about a dozen large, historic trees in 2009, compared to two or three during normal years. Although many of Atlanta's trees are between 80 and 100 years old and thus reaching the end of their normal lifespan, the drought accelerated their demise by shrinking the trees' roots. However, the problem is being addressed by community organizations and city government. [3] Trees Atlanta, a non-profit organization founded in 1985, has planted and distributed over 126,000 shade trees. [12] Atlanta's city government awarded $130,000 in grants to neighborhood groups to plant trees. [3]
The city is home to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, an annual arts and crafts festival held one weekend during early April, when the native dogwoods are in bloom.
Proposed construction of a police training facility in the South River Forest—a 80-acre greenspace (32 ha) in southeast Atlanta and Dekalb county—has led to ongoing protests. Conservationists and activists oppose the project and built encampments in and around the old Atlanta prison farm during 2021 and 2022. This has led to multiple confrontations with police. [13] [14] [15]
The low-density residential subdivision development that dominates the Atlanta area has historically not been required to replace lost tree inventory.[ citation needed ] Because of larger lot sizes and natural-looking architecture, such as California contemporary, older neighborhoods typically have many mature forest trees, except in cases where they have been destroyed by homeowners.[ citation needed ] Increasing density allowed by zoning since the 1980s has meant fewer and fewer trees left, and by the 2000s it became common for developers to completely clearcut dozens of acres of forest and bulldoze all hills flat to build generic tract housing, often with tightly packed homes nearly touching each other and up against the street.[ citation needed ] However, over the past decade some area cities and counties have revised their tree ordinances to require tree recompense to be equal to or greater than the pre-development tree density, trying to ensure a future tree canopy. Rather than leaving trees on each home lot as before, this typically involves a set-aside of green space in each development, with most other areas still clear-cut. Even when some trees are replaced, it is with a single type of trees planted the same distance from each other, rather than different trees at random placement and age as in the native forest. At a rate of 50 acres (20 hectares) per day,[ citation needed ] the deforestation brought by land development has had a significant impact on area watersheds, as they now flood far more rapidly and to a much greater extent than prior to development.[ citation needed ]
The American Institute of Architecture's 1993 Guide to the Architecture of Atlanta wrote:
[T]he city's greatest natural asset, its lush vegetation and gently rolling topography, which eighty years ago enabled Druid Hills to become one of the most beautiful Olmstedian garden suburbs in North America, distinguishes Atlanta's highway architecture from suburban office complexes in other boom towns like Houston and Tampa. [16]
Author Tom Wolfe wrote in A Man in Full :
He looked away from the buildings and out over the ocean of trees. Since Atlanta was not a port city and was, in fact, far inland, the trees stretched on in every direction. They were Atlanta's greatest natural resource, those trees were. People loved to live beneath them. [17]
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, and a portion of the city extends into neighboring DeKalb County. With a population of 510,823 living within the city limits, Atlanta is the eighth most populous city in the Southeast and 38th most populous city in the United States according to the 2020 U.S. census. It is the principal city of the much larger Atlanta metropolitan area, the core of which includes Cobb, Clayton and Gwinnett counties, in addition to Fulton and DeKalb. Metro Atlanta is home to more than 6.3 million people, making it the sixth-largest U.S. metropolitan area. Situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of just over 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, Atlanta features unique topography that includes rolling hills, lush greenery, and the densest urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States.
In forestry and ecology, understory, or understorey, also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but above the forest floor. Only a small percentage of light penetrates the canopy so understory vegetation is generally shade-tolerant. The understory typically consists of trees stunted through lack of light, other small trees with low light requirements, saplings, shrubs, vines and undergrowth. Small trees such as holly and dogwood are understory specialists.
Cornus florida, the flowering dogwood, is a species of flowering tree in the family Cornaceae native to eastern North America and northern Mexico. An endemic population once spanned from southernmost coastal Maine south to northern Florida and west to the Mississippi River. The tree is commonly planted as an ornamental in residential and public areas because of its showy bracts and interesting bark structure.
Urban forestry is the care and management of single trees and tree populations in urban settings for the purpose of improving the urban environment. Urban forestry involves both planning and management, including the programming of care and maintenance operations of the urban forest. Urban forestry advocates the role of trees as a critical part of the urban infrastructure. Urban foresters plant and maintain trees, support appropriate tree and forest preservation, conduct research and promote the many benefits trees provide. Urban forestry is practiced by municipal and commercial arborists, municipal and utility foresters, environmental policymakers, city planners, consultants, educators, researchers and community activists.
Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown for short, is a high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used by the city, residents, and local business groups. However, the commercial core of the area is anchored by a series of high-rise office buildings, condominiums, hotels, and high-end retail along Peachtree Street between North Avenue and 17th Street. Midtown, situated between Downtown to the south and Buckhead to the north, is the second-largest business district in Metro Atlanta. In 2011, Midtown had a resident population of 41,681 and a business population of 81,418.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a 30 acres (12 ha) botanical garden located adjacent to Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Incorporated in 1976, the garden's mission is to "develop and maintain plant collections for the purposes of display, education, conservation, research and enjoyment."
An urban forest is a forest, or a collection of trees, that grow within a city, town or a suburb. In a wider sense, it may include any kind of woody plant vegetation growing in and around human settlements. As opposed to a forest park, whose ecosystems are also inherited from wilderness leftovers, urban forests often lack amenities like public bathrooms, paved paths, or sometimes clear borders which are distinct features of parks. Care and management of urban forests is called urban forestry. Urban forests can be privately and publicly owned. Some municipal forests may be located outside of the town or city to which they belong.
Fernbank Forest is a 65-acre mature mixed forest that is part of Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta, Georgia. It has some relatively old trees compared to much of the forests in the Piedmont; as such, it has been extensively studied by scientists. Large specimens of white oak and tulip poplar, which grow up to 156 feet tall, can be found along one slope within the forest. There also are a few equally tall loblolly pine. Other canopy species include American beech, black oak, northern red oak, southern red oak, pignut hickory, bitternut hickory, mockernut hickory, winged elm and red maple. Eastern flowering dogwood, sourwood, umbrella magnolia and eastern redbud are prominent among the smaller trees. The forest floor is covered by many shrub, wildflower, and fern species.
In the central and southern Appalachian Mountains of Eastern North America, a cove is a small valley between two ridge lines that is closed at one or both ends.
Native trees in Toronto are trees that are naturally growing in Toronto and were not later introduced by humans. The area that presently comprise Toronto is a part of the Carolinian forest, although agricultural and urban developments destroyed significant portions of that life zone. In addition, many of Toronto's native trees have been displaced by non-native plants and trees introduced by settlers from Europe and Asia from the 18th century to the present. Most of the native trees are found in the Toronto ravine system, parks, and along the Toronto waterway system.
Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metropolitan statistical area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the sixth-largest in the United States, based on the July 1, 2023 metropolitan area population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Its economic, cultural, and demographic center is Atlanta, and its total population was 6,307,261 in the 2023 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Xeriscaping is the process of landscaping, or gardening, that reduces or eliminates the need for irrigation. It is promoted in regions that do not have accessible, plentiful, or reliable supplies of fresh water and has gained acceptance in other regions as access to irrigation water has become limited, though it is not limited to such climates. Xeriscaping may be an alternative to various types of traditional gardening.
Piscidia piscipula, commonly named Florida fishpoison tree, Jamaican dogwood, or fishfuddle, is a medium-sized, deciduous, tropical tree in the Fabaceae family. It is native to the Greater Antilles, extreme southern Florida and the Bahamas, and the coastal region from Panama northward to the vicinity of Ocampo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The native Taino of the West Indies discovered that extracts from the tree could sedate fish, allowing them to be caught by hand. This practice led to the tree's common names—fishpoison and fishfuddle. The tree has medicinal value as an analgesic and sedative.
Conservation in India can be traced to the time of Ashoka, tracing to the Ashoka Pillar Edicts as one of the earliest conservation efforts in the world. Conservation generally refers to the act of carefully and efficiently using natural resources. Conservation efforts begun in India before 5 AD, as efforts are made to have a forest administration. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the ministry responsible for implementation of environmental and forestry program in India, which include the management of national parks, conservation of flora and fauna of India, and pollution controls.
An 1859 industrial journal was among the first to note nicknames for Atlanta, Georgia:
An orator claimed for it the signification of "a city among the hills" while a writer has declared that it was the opposite of "rus in urbe" and proclaimed it "'the city in the woods".
The Geography of Atlanta encompasses 132.4 square miles (342.9 km2), of which 131.7 square miles (341.1 km2) is land and 0.7 square miles (1.8 km2) is water. The city is situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and at 1,050 feet (320 m) above mean sea level, Atlanta has the highest elevation among major cities east of the Mississippi River. Atlanta straddles the Eastern Continental Divide, such that rainwater that falls on the south and east side of the divide flows into the Atlantic Ocean, while rainwater on the north and west side of the divide flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Atlanta sits atop a ridge south of the Chattahoochee River, which is part of the ACF River Basin. Located at the far northwestern edge of the city, much of the river's natural habitat is preserved, in part by the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.
Urban reforestation is the practice of planting trees, typically on a large scale, in urban environments. It may also include urban horticulture and urban farming.
Tropical vegetation is any vegetation in tropical latitudes. Plant life that occurs in climates that are warm year-round is in general more biologically diverse than in other latitudes. Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the whole year round, but others have long dry seasons which last several months and may vary in length and intensity with geographic location. These seasonal droughts have a great impact on the vegetation, such as in the Madagascar spiny forests.
The Old Atlanta Prison Farm is an abandoned, city-owned prison complex in southwest DeKalb County in the U.S. state of Georgia. From approximately 1920 to 1990, the farm was worked by prisoners to produce food for the region's prison system. There are limited historical records detailing the operation of the farm, especially after 1965.
Stop Cop City (SCC), also known as Block Cop City and Defend the Atlanta Forest (DTF), is a decentralized movement in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, whose goal is to stop construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center by the Atlanta Police Foundation and the City of Atlanta. The proposed location for the facility is the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, and opponents of the facility are concerned about the growth of policing in the city—which has witnessed several protests against police violence following the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the killing of Rayshard Brooks, both by police officers.
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