We need millions for this: Grey to Green: Creating “Cool” Cities Symposium Report

This is one of the future-proofing/resiliency ideas that we should be pouring our scarce resources into, instead of into CH2M-Hill and the Sprawl Lobby's already-overflowing pockets. NOT the Bridgasaurus, in other words.

The one thing that is needed is to get the urban forestry people to start talking to OSU, and Salem Harvest and the Food Share about how we can take action NOW to make our urban forests into food forests as well. Instead of a No Place, Salem can lead in something positive for a change -- getting rid of ornamental cherry trees, planting real ones! And apples, plums, pears, and figs, and Asian pears, and walnuts. 

We need a robust partnership (public/nonprofit) spray and pruning operation that ensures that every fruit and nut tree in Salem is maintained and harvested, and that neighborhoods are given the tools and guidance to help them. 

There is this absurd idea that we need only ornamental trees, and that fruit and nut trees should be shunned in the city ... Where the most hungry people are.

This is insane. We have countless acres of good land wasted in parking strips and grassed areas already provided with water.  There's a school serving every part of the city.  Wherever there is a school, there is an opportunity for a whole engaging curriculum core based on getting kids to help monitor and care for food trees, and to connect the community to the schools, and we are sure as hell going to need the food.

Grey to Green: Creating "Cool" Cities Symposium Wrap-Up

Dallas, TX (July 21, 2014) — The cities where we live are heating up, but trees and green infrastructure can help them stay cool. In late May, the Texas Trees Foundation hosted a regional conference, Grey to Green: Creating "Cool" Cities. They've just released a wrap-up report from the symposium which featured keynote speaker Dr. Brian Stone, an expert on urban environmental planning at the Georgia Tech.

What makes a cool city? Green infrastructure, sustainable design, art, music, trails, walkability, greenways, complete streets, parks, open space, and really cool people.

Over 100 people gathered at the Dallas Museum of Art to hear keynote speaker Dr. Brian Stone, Jr., associate professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology and author of The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places We Live.

Other speakers included David Hitchcock of the Houston Area Research Center, Dr. Robert Haley with UT Southwestern Medical Center, and Matt Grubisich, and urban forester with Texas Trees Foundation. All addressed the urgent need to manage urban heat and the role of trees and green infrastructure.

Managing urban heat in an increasingly hot and dry climate, such as Texas, is necessary to protect public health, infrastructure, the economy and quality of life. This makes trees and green infrastructure a priority.

The symposium report, "Grey to Green: Creating Cool Cities," is available online for download at http://actrees.org/files/Events/TXTreesUrbanHeatReport.pdf.