Patricia Leigh Brown covers, for the New York Times, the efforts in Oakland to bring more of the city’s namesake trees back to the area. I was pleased that this tidbit made it into the final copy:
The people restoring the oaks point out that there is a strong link between urban trees and health, and that children get more exercise when they live in a greener neighborhood. In Oakland, disparities between the leafy hills and low-income flatlands — sometimes called the “green-gray divide” — went viral three years ago when satellite imagery of income inequality seen from space was posted on the blog Per Square Mile. According to state data, 25 census tracts in Oakland are in the top quarter of the state’s worst toxic hot spots of air pollution and other negative health factors.