Texas Trees Foundation plans to add trees to the UT Southwestern Medical District and South Dallas
Texas Trees Foundation – South Dallas Greening Initiative – May 2024
The Texas Trees Foundation $15 million South Dallas Greening Initiative, will bring thousands of trees to the almost 50,000 residents of Fair Park, Mill City, Queen City, Wheatley Place and adjacent neighborhoods.
Texas Trees secured an Inflation Reduction Act grant for the work through the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry program. The nonprofit will partner for five years with South Dallas residents and community-based groups.
Two years ago, Texas Trees created a Dallas Tree Equity planting map to show where investment is most needed. The research combined data on urban heat and tree canopy with socioeconomic and health information.
“Unsurprisingly, people like those in South Dallas who are disadvantaged have higher incidence of illness and being impacted by urban heat,” Monear said. “There we see highest need intersecting with smallest tree canopy.”
The canopy in the neighborhoods where Texas Trees will focus is as low as 14%, compared with the nonprofit’s 37% goal. Temperatures in heat islands, expanses of concrete that trap and radiate hot air, can be 11 degrees hotter than elsewhere in the city.
Every tree has value, Monear explained, but strategic planting is economically smarter and smarter for people’s health. For instance, adding trees to a park where many already exist is less significant than in a schoolyard with no shade or in tree-starved neighborhoods where people suffer higher rates of asthma.
Monear also pointed to the common practice of planting trees in a row, usually 30 to 35 feet apart. “Those don’t provide a cooler sidewalk experience,” she said. Instead, in the medical district and South Dallas projects, trees will be planted, whenever possible, in mini groves.
“In clumps, they graft root systems and share nutrients and water and live almost twice as long as if planted in rows,” Monear said.
With funding in hand for the South Dallas project, the first step is community meetings to hear what residents want. Texas Trees’ work, if not the nonprofit itself, is known in South Dallas because it is responsible for most of the street trees in the nearby Jubilee Park neighborhood.
A big chunk of the $15 million will go toward assessment, planting and maintenance of trees. The initiative also will provide resident-friendly urban forestry education and career training through the nonprofit’s workforce program.