Fig 1.
Urbanized areas mapped in this study.
Tree cover was mapped for 2016. An inset map of the tree cover (green) of a portion of the Los Angeles urbanized area is shown. Within the area mapped in the inset, there were 93 municipalities and 34 census-designated places, whose outlines are shown with black lines.
Fig 2.
Tree cover as a function of income.
We classified census blocks based upon the income distribution within its urbanized area, calculating the percentile of the income distribution that block has. For ease of display, blocks were grouped into income categories (0–5%, 5–10%, etc.) and the population-weighted median tree cover (%) across the entire study area calculated. This paper focuses most of its analysis on the lowest quartile (red squares) and highest quartile (green triangles) of income.
Table 1.
Median tree cover, by population density and income categories.
Fig 3.
Tree cover for United States large urbanized areas.
a.) Population-weighted median tree cover. b.) The absolute difference between low-income blocks (lowest quartile of income) and high-income blocks (highest quartile of income) in tree cover.
Fig 4.
Patterns across blocks of different incomes.
Census blocks within each urbanized area were classified by the quartile of income they occupy. For each quartile, we show the median tree cover, population density, age, and percent non-Hispanic white.
Fig 5.
Surface temperature for United States large urbanized areas.
a.) Population-weighted median summer surface temperature. b.) The absolute difference in summer surface temperature between low-income blocks (lowest quartile of income) and high-income blocks (highest quartile of income).
Table 2.
The tree cover disparity.