One of the more pernicious false choices you hear in debates about trees and redevelopment in Portland is the idea that we must “choose” between trees and their public health benefits and the urgent need for affordable housing. Preserving more, larger trees and space for new trees, some say, will significantly and unacceptably increase housing costs. Ignoring the obvious negative impacts of unbridled land speculation, rising inequality, and failed or inadequate housing policies on affordability, this misplaced blame of tree preservation distracts from the real opportunities to create more smaller affordable dwellings amidst a healthy urban forest and walkable neighborhoods.
On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with urban conservationist Jim Labbe and Portland State University Urban Studies and Planning professor Vivek Shandas about what Portland can do to ensure that more trees are included in affordable redevelopment projects, so that all Portlanders can share in the public health benefits of an urban tree canopy, that also helps curb carbon emissions.
Jim Labbe was the Audubon Society of Portland's urban conservationist from 2002 to 2016 and the Portland 2016 Bill Naito Community Trees Award recipient.
Vivek Shandas is a professor in Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University.
- KBOO