Tree & Urban Forestry Webinar Series

Seeing Trees and the Forest

Wednesday September 16, 2020 – Noon to 1 pm

Speaker: Dr Sonja Dümpelmann, University of Pennsylvania

Today, many cities around the globe are planting street trees to mitigate the effects of climate change. 

However, this practice is not a new phenomenon. As I will show in this lecture, cities like New York City and Berlin during the nineteenth century began to systematically plant trees to improve the urban climate. I will present the history of street tree planting within its larger social, cultural, and political contexts.

Street trees–variously regarded as sanitizers, nuisances, upholders of virtue, economic engines, habitat, and more–reflect the changing relationship between humans and nonhuman nature in urban environments.

Thank you to Virginia Cooperative Extension for hosting these webinars!