Urban Trees

[MidTowner]

danbrotherston

I would agree our urban forest is not terribly substantial.  Even in the townships, it's quite depleted.  Trees for Woolwich has been attempting to reverse this trend, but the ash borer has been devastating there as well.

I am curious how you know plantings today are less diverse?  I realize that historically they have been pretty much a monoculture (mostly ash, unfortunately), but I thought we'd realized how terrible an idea that is, and would now be planting a more diverse population.

Actually, when I said that our plantings are less diverse now, I was thinking more of private property owners than municipalities and other organizations. The majority of trees are on private property, after all, and those owners may have different priorities and different levels of knowledge. Also different levels of patience- I don't often see recently-planted oaks in front yards.
Ash isn't the majority of our urban forest, fortunately, but you're right that they're in big numbers, and municipalities seem to have liked them and elms a lot- bad luck. Maple is the most common by far in urban areas around here, and to the extent we have a diversity issue, it's that there are too many maples and many homeowners, when wanting to plant a tree, opt for one.
That's actually the specific case I'm thinking of when I say that mature trees may represent more diversity than the ones replacing it: a couple of mature oaks or hickories cut down, replaced by the developer by some autumn blaze maples.*
You're probably right when you say that cities are getting better at diversity, and not just planting thousands and thousands of elms or ash any more.
*There's nothing wrong with autumn blaze maples. We probably don't need quite so many of them, though.