Why Detroit Residents Pushed Back Against Tree-Planting
November 11, 2021 11:42 AM   Subscribe

 
paywall-free link
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 11:45 AM on November 11, 2021


ivan, archive.md actively breaks dns for firefox clients just because ff goes out of its way to not provide extra identifying data about the user to them. leave it up to you to judge how scummy that is.
posted by tigrrrlily at 11:54 AM on November 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


This is of course notably a problem for environmental groups, which in the US have trended whiter and richer, but occurs with a lot of other progressive or charitable causes. If you don't have participation from the community you are (ostensibly) serving, the results can be comical and utterly ephemeral.

If you don't have a feeling of inclusion from the community, then frustration can be the most durable result (there are too many results for "poverty porn" to link just one).
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 11:55 AM on November 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


tigrrlily, ew ew ew, and thanks for the info.

This link should work until Bloomberg fixes the "add a period behind the .com" hack, and then the hamster wheel of justice shall spin again.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 11:59 AM on November 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


Sometimes I think "How is "talk to people first to find out what they want" still considered a new idea?????????" but then I remember that the key word is "people" and it's not really that "talking to people to find out what they want" is a new idea but it's more like "every human being is literally a person who can be talked to" is the idea that's new. It sucks. It makes life worse and harder for everyone. We have to fix this shit.
posted by bleep at 12:24 PM on November 11, 2021 [26 favorites]


Free city trees aren't so free once they get big enough to have their tap root find your sewage line. We've had two "basement full of shit" experiences from the tree outside our house. The first was inside our property line, so the city wouldn't pay any of it - despite it being caused by their tree. The second time, I'm so glad we had the same city inspector as came the first time. When he saw that the break was just inside our property line again, he asked "Have you had this happen before?". I said yes, and he said "Thought I recognized the address", moved the camera 15 cm inside the city line and signed off on the break being there.
posted by scruss at 12:37 PM on November 11, 2021 [31 favorites]


What she found is that the rejections had more to do with how the tree-planters presented themselves and residents’ distrust of city government than it did with how residents felt about trees.

I mean, no one really trusts any city to be competent on managing the downsides of any particular issue, so on the surface, it seems like planters going to folks and asking them if they want trees or not seems to be asking city residents to take direct, personal agency on that decision, yes or no, which makes me wonder how those offering trees presented themselves, exactly, to evoke a 'no'. This article doesn't seem to go into that side of it, but I'm curious.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:54 PM on November 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


There was distrust not only of the city, but of the tree planters as well, particularly considering how TGD staff stepped to the people in the communities they were plotting on. The Greening of Detroit had 50,000 volunteers (during that 2011-2014 time period), most of them white and not from Detroit. The organization had just one community-outreach person on staff. And that outreach apparently did not include involving neighborhood residents in the planning of this urban-forestry program.

Part of this has to do with the fact that "planting trees" won't solve immediate environmental problems facing people living in Detroit. Also, if you want to say "I've never been to Detroit," one way of putting it would be to say "What Detroit needs is an urban forest!"

The Metro Times did this in-depth series on a bunch of these immediate problems a while back:

Struggling to breathe in 48217, Michigan’s most toxic ZIP code:

In the mid-1960s, the construction of I-75 split 48217 in half, plowing through neighborhoods and Black-owned businesses. Today, I-75 is a congested, eight-lane highway used by 100,000 cars and diesel-powered semi-trucks a day, choking the area with nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, benzene, and other harmful emissions known to cause serious health problems, such as asthma, impaired lung function, cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, and birth defects.

But nothing was more impactful and encroaching than Marathon, the only oil refinery in Michigan, which dramatically increased in size for five decades. The refinery now sprawls across 250 acres in 48217 and produces up to 140,000 barrels of oil a day, pumping out hundreds of tons of nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide, according to EPA records. Today, the refinery emits 29 different types of toxins, which waft across neighborhoods and put residents at an elevated risk of cancer, respiratory disease, asthma, and liver failure. The refinery also emits at least eight chemicals known to cause cancer, including benzene, dioxin, and lead compounds, according to the EPA.

The acrid smell emanating from the plant is so intense that residents often feel nauseated inside their homes with the windows shut.

"At night, the smell is so bad it wakes you up," Juanita Patterson, who has asthma, tells Metro Times. "I get really, really bad headaches. It's really hard for me to breathe."

Gone are the fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Residents no longer grow produce because the air and ground are contaminated with hazardous substances. Soil samples at schools and parks have revealed dangerous levels of lead and arsenic, both of which are toxic and cause serious health problems, especially to children and pregnant mothers. Study after study shows that lead and arsenic can lead to learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and slowed growth in children.


Communities of color are dumping grounds for toxic waste in Michigan

Lead poisoning endangers generations of Detroit children, with no end in sight

To get a clearer idea of the 48217, hop onto Streetview and start poking around Zug Island (which has no Streetview images because it's very locked down), and then start moving north/northeast of Zug and the Rouge Complex to get an idea of how close people live to that. And then remember that this was done intentionally to those residents. If you poke around Delray and understand where it sits, you'll notice that it's got plenty of trees. Trees aren't the problem there.

Initiatives that cheerfully whistle past these problems are a dime a dozen...

‘Motown Movement’ sustainability project flops:

In the spring of 2017, three eager architecture students from the Netherlands swooped into Detroit and made a bold promise: They would fight climate change by transforming an abandoned, ramshackle house on the city’s west side into a self-sufficient home with a windmill, solar panels, green roof, community center, and urban garden.

[...]

“Together, we will make sure the living conditions for all Detroiters will improve and by donating we will make sustainable housing accessible for everyone!” the group pledged on its crowdfunding page.

Four years later, the house is a shuttered, vacant eyesore across the street from a park and elementary school, and the community gardens are overrun with waist-high grass and weeds.

Wayne County recently foreclosed on the house because the Motown Movement failed to pay property taxes for the past three years, racking up a delinquent $4,203 bill.


You know something that helps out neighbourhoods, albeit indirectly? Paying your municipal tax bill.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:11 PM on November 11, 2021 [33 favorites]


If you poke around Delray and understand where it sits, you'll notice that it's got plenty of trees. Trees aren't the problem there.

i had some friends who rented a house on medina st in the late 70s - you'd have to brush the steel plant dust off your windshield before you drove off

there were trees - trees were certainly not a problem
posted by pyramid termite at 1:58 PM on November 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


I have a vague memory of a working-class discussion of trees which concluded "of course you don't want a tree next to your house, because you're screwed if it ever falls over."

Which, yeah, would pretty much be a disaster if you've got limited resources.
posted by clawsoon at 2:58 PM on November 11, 2021 [8 favorites]


The neighborhoods had streets and yards full of mature trees. Then the cops decided to patrol those neighborhoods with helicopters. They couldn’t see those criminals because of the trees. So the city cut the trees down. No one wants to live in a neighborhood with helicopters flying overhead day and night and barren streets. The neighborhoods emptied out and only those who couldn’t move away remained. People who owned their homes got wiped out.

People are right to be suspicious. Those trees are not being planted for them. They want them to plant the tree, care for it to maturity and then when the trees mature the developers will come in and gentrify the place.
posted by interogative mood at 2:59 PM on November 11, 2021 [21 favorites]


mandolin conspiracy: hear, HEAR

The arrogance of having an intervention prepped and ready TO CONVINCE COMMUNITIES TO ACCEPT (read: FOIST UPON) without having involved those communities in deciding how to spend the resources that paid for that intervention (in this case, quite certainly Detroit citizens' OWN DAMN TAX DOLLARS) is the rule rather than the exception, but it still makes me livid every time I hear about it.

Same for pushing interventions that require long-term sustainability planning with zero attention to sustainability. Who is going to pay to keep those trees healthy, to make sure they don't fall on anyone's car or house, or damage other infrastructure, as scruss points out? What does it mean to ask a resident, elderly or otherwise, to host a deciduous tree that they'll need to rake up after, or an enthusiastic bloomer that coats everyone's car in pollen and resin and aggravates your kid's asthma? In international development, this looks like installing water pumps with no money for maintenance training, tools, or upkeep, for just one example, or building schools without money for teachers, supplies, or student meals, or any of a thousand other roads to hell built on shortsighted, self-serving charity thinking, and it's a disgusting practice. ARGH

Also, the City of Houston "failed to survey non-white, lower-income residents for the creation of its parks master plan in 2014"? I'm not a lawyer, but this feels like the kind of thing that communities should be able to sue over. Over and over and over again people in power need to engage with and listen to to the constituents affected by their choices: Nothing about us without us.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 3:09 PM on November 11, 2021 [12 favorites]


bq, thank you so much - this article, and the linked article about Houston, are both fantastic.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 3:12 PM on November 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm not a lawyer, but this feels like the kind of thing that communities should be able to sue over

Not to derail, but what kind of suit are you picturing here?

(My experience is that public entities at every level are not legally beholden in the way you're describing)
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:06 PM on November 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Who rakes and disposes of the leaves of the free trees?

Years ago I owned a house on a tiny back lot in a Northeastern city. On my property were two humungous leaf-shedding trees, and because of lots of fencing the leaves stayed on my property until they were gathered. When I bought my house I was pretty young and silly and I thought I could handle owning a single family home.

35+ bags of leaves a year, for which I alone was responsible. I worked fulltime and had recovery meetings nearly every night of the week at the time. Suffice it to say that the leaf-go-round either didn't happen, or all my free time was consumed.

And It's fine to say "let them compost" but there were so many of the fuckers that that never happened. I finally was able to hire a service to do it in my last years in the house, which was great when the service showed up. The sale of that house was one of the best things I ever did for myself.

I wouldn't wish large deciduous trees on anyone's property unless they really want them, especially if they're working people who are struggling to put food on the table. Not in a million years.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 5:16 PM on November 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


The cost of buying and planting the tree is likely minuscule compared to the constant sweeping and maintenance of the tree, as well as the risks of the tree falling on things, its roots damaging pipes, and its growth upheaving the sidewalk. So I completely get why people weren't excited about the "donation" of a planted tree. If the city is going to do something for "the public good" it also must be responsible for the bad things too, including maintaining it. Classic example of trying to shift the costs of a public good onto private citizens.

I'm not a lawyer, but this feels like the kind of thing that communities should be able to sue over

This is obviously the complete opposite situation, but "local control" has been used for decades by NIMBYs as a dog whistle for stifling any change and growth in their communities, while reaping immense rewards for having their properties increase in value many times over. So be careful how you use this.
posted by meowzilla at 6:04 PM on November 11, 2021 [5 favorites]


Reasonably Everything That Happens and meowzilla, you both sound knowledgeable about suing and public services - I most definitely am not knowledgeable, so thank you for giving me context and questions to think with! If my “should” statement came across as a call to action, it was not intended to - that “should” was about what I angrily wish was possible, since losing a court case and paying money seems sometimes to be the only thing that can change institutional behavior. meowzilla, that seems like evidence that my indignant imagination has been shaped (and constrained) by the very same attitudes and litigiousness it sounds like led to NIMBY garbage-behavior. Sigh. Very good to keep in mind.

Reasonably Everything That Happens, my brain felt like suing must be an option because of the vague sense I have about citizen-service issues that were argued in courts as really being rights-under-the-law issues. Forsure I don’t imagine Texas has any specific laws about ensuring representative samples for their design surveys, but it felt possible that there might be ways to legally argue that a community hasn’t been treated equally. Of course, I also know that the unequal provision of services is endemic, and so I’m not sure exactly why I thought this might be different, beyond wanting it to be. This perspective of mine is almost completely uninformed - if there’s anything you’d be willing to share that you think is good to learn from, I’d be very glad to learn more.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:52 PM on November 11, 2021


"At night, the smell is so bad it wakes you up," Juanita Patterson, who has asthma, tells Metro Times. "I get really, really bad headaches. It's really hard for me to breathe."

You can smell it just driving by on the freeway. I can't imagine actually living close by.
posted by praemunire at 12:18 AM on November 12, 2021


This sounds like partially an example of well-meaning people saying "if you just explain it properly..." as if that's the solution to everything. Per the article, the residents of Detroit who have been offered trees and turned them down, often have an accurate grasp of the benefits of having trees in their neighborhood and so explaining them better isn't useful. The issue is that they also understand the disbenefits of trees, and have strong views about how the future is most likely to pan out. They've made a rational calculation that the trees are not going to be worth it.
posted by plonkee at 2:05 AM on November 12, 2021 [7 favorites]


For what it's worth, Detroit does have trees, but they are not equitably distributed in the city. For a fascinating deep-dive into urban forestry on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, check out the Tree Equity Score analysis for Detroit. Sadly, both things here are true: the remaining effects of redlining have left urban forests as an important and critical issue to be addressed in environmental justice, AND we need sustainability work led by the actual people in the affected communities.
posted by hessie at 7:35 AM on November 12, 2021 [1 favorite]


bq, thank you so much - this article, and the linked article about Houston, are both fantastic.

The linked article about Houston is crappy and full of half truths. So Rice surveyed minorities in parks, I forget how many, but it wasn't very many, I think less than 1,000 across many different days. So of course if you survey people in parks, then access is not a primary issue, because they are there. That leaves out the other 3million minorities that weren't there in a park to be surveyed. Is access the primary reason they aren't in parks? Who knows? Neither group surveyed them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:31 AM on November 12, 2021


BTW, a group called The Trust for Public Land does national surveys and rates cities based on their parks, and Houston is #77 and gets 40% for access, 40% for investment, 34% for amenities, and 43% for equity, so both groups are completely correct, that Houston lacks access to parks and that it's parks on average are pretty sorry.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:40 AM on November 12, 2021


Detroit is #66 and is ranked higher in most of those categories.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:42 AM on November 12, 2021


As a kid, I grew up in a town downwind from the Detroit and Sarnia (Ontario) refineries. Our town was known as the “Forest City” and there was indeed a fuck-ton of trees around us, but they were no match for the airborne toxins and acid rain. I developed a “reactive airway disorder” that was symptomatically equivalent to juvenile asthma within a year of our family moving there.
posted by LMGM at 12:23 PM on November 12, 2021 [2 favorites]


If you want to trigger white people post a comment on social media suggesting that there was any link between policing and the cutting down of mature trees in black neighborhoods in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s.

It is interesting how quickly white people with no qualifications in forestry or any lived experience in Detroit suddenly feel the need to prove it was just Dutch elm disease.
posted by interogative mood at 2:41 PM on November 12, 2021 [5 favorites]


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