Having trees helps so incredibly much with fighting the heat. Around my house are lots of trees and gras. This has the advantage, that it cools down Mich faster in the evening.
“We hear you! More cars it is!”
Now show this to the Tokyo city office
No one tell Paris
?
When you make an urban park, you have to accept two things though. First, locally the city becomes more expensive. And second, it will occupy more space over potentially natural zones (over suburban area actually, that themselves will grow over peri-rural, that will push these, etc.)
If your goal is wildlife preservation or carbon capture, you probably want one more hectare in a forest rather than an hectare in a park inside a city.
Don’t get me wrong, I wanted more trees when I was living in a city. But the choice is between livable big cities or trying to make the cities as small impact as possible.
It’s not just parks though, there are tons of options that don’t cost buildable land - the article called out sidewalks and medians, I’d highlight how well a goal of more trees fits with pedestrianized streets, or even traffic calming tactics like removing lanes. On top of that many cities have places you can’t build which are great places for greenways - bike paths on former rail easements, riparian boundaries along rivers and other waterways, even linear parks over shallow subway tunnels.
