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In 37 cities around the country, formerly redlined neighborhoods have about half as many trees on average today as the highest-rated predominantly white neighborhoods on those maps.

Our city is the largest hand-planted urban forest in the world, but many of those trees are reaching the end of their life. Fortunately, Sacramento’s trees are skipping the landfill and getting a second life thanks to the nonprofit Urban Wood Rescue.

Shade in Los Angeles sits at the intersection of two crises: climate change and income inequality. City officials are rushing to deploy cover to hundreds of bus stops and plant 90,000 trees.

"Women who lived among lush greenery had a 41% lower death rate for kidney disease, 34% lower death rate for respiratory disease (trees' leaves trap air pollutants) and 13% lower death rate for cancer."

"In municipalities around the world, the trees are chipped into mulch. Not just the leaves and skinny branches and bark, but the whole tree. It’s the least valuable, indeed least respectful, thing you can do with a tree." Urban Wood Rescue aims to rewrite this story.

Urban heat islands are areas with very few trees, very little shade and a built environment that soaks up heat and releases it into the air. Trees can help make cities more livable as temperatures rise under climate change. Their presence can cool a neighborhood by as much as 10 degrees. In Sacramento as in many other metro areas, urban heat islands often coincide with the most impoverished neighborhoods.

"Too often, the places where [big trees once] grew remain empty or are filled with shrubs or small trees that will never provide the grandeur and shade of their predecessors. If you have such a spot, or another good location, now is the time to plant a new tree."

Volunteers got together Sunday for the Arden Park neighborhood's 19th annual tree planting day.