Pittsburgh’s street trees are free upon request. So why do they often go to the city’s wealthiest residents?

Pittsburgh City Paper

Independent: Butler Eagle

Pittsburgh’s street trees are free upon request. So why do they often go to the city’s wealthiest residents?

Pittsburgh City Paper mapped every street tree planted and managed by the City of Pittsburgh as of 2014 and overlaid them on a map of neighborhoods and their median household incomes recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2022. The results show that 37% of all 33,071 city-planted street trees line the streets of Pittsburgh's top 15 wealthiest neighborhoods. Meanwhile, several lower-income neighborhoods have fewer than 10. It's one in a slew of sp…