Seattle's overall tree canopy cover is 23 percent, but the city aspires to 30 percent by 2037. This is the Capitol Hill neighborhood, a densely populated residential district east of the city's central business district.
Photo: Wikipedia Commons

You won't be surprised to learn that when the Seattle Times took the city's median household income data from the U.S. Census Bureau and separated its 53 neighborhoods into low ($21,095-$54,712), middle ($56,963-$74,302) and high ($74,398-$110,992) income areas, and then compared it with a map of the city's tree canopy, the lower-income neighborhoods generally had the fewest trees. "Quelle surprise!" might be the ironic retort from a French expatriate sipping an espresso at a Seattle coffee house.

The higher-income neighborhoods had a 29 percent tree cover; the lower-income areas had about 18 percent. Overall, the city tree canopy is at 23 percent, although the data is seven years old. Seattle boasted 40 percent canopy coverage back in the 1970s. Nearby Bellevue can brag of 36-percent tree coverage. Further down the coast, Portland, Oregon maintains 30 percent citywide, according to a 2012 city report.

Mark Mead, arborist for the Seattle Parks Department, told the Times that development is "denuding the southern part of the city," which is less expensive real estate. While Seattle has a 30 percent tree cover goal by 2037, it's a continuous battle versus development and hardscaping.

Seattle is losing some trees to redevelopment, and some illegal cutting, but Seattle DOT planted more than 1,000 street trees last year. And since 2009, the SeattlereLeaf program, which sends volunteer tree ambassadors to neighborhoods and provides free trees, has planted 4,000 trees in yards and along streets.

The city is also working with Forterra, "the largest conservation and community building organization in the Northwest," to protect the canopy from invasive species like blackberries, English ivy and holly, which can totally engulf trees.

Urban forests have huge ecological benefits of course, including stormwater infiltrating, a definite advantage in the wet Pacific Northwest. While Seattle has a reputation of being rain sodden, it averages a modest 37 inches of annual rain, a far cry for instance from the 99 inches for Forks, Wash., just west of Seattle on the other side of Olympic National Park.