It’s hard to find shade on the sunny corner of West 67th Street and South Main Street. About 1,000 students at the adjacent Mary McLeod Bethune Middle School need relief from rising temperatures. Thanks to support from USC’s Urban Trees Initiative, a solution is on the way.
Sustainability, a commitment to USC’s leadership in green research, education, policy development, and practice, is one of USC President Carol Folt’s “moonshot” initiatives. Learn more about this work and USC’s Assignment: Earth initiative.
The area will eventually have more than 60 trees lining the streets as part of a $3 million urban greening project made possible by a U.S. Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry grant to the City of Los Angeles. This grant is funded through the Inflation Reduction Act to increase equitable access to trees and nature. USC Trees — a partnership between the city and USC to lead to a more equitable urban forest — identified Bethune Middle School as a priority site because of its exposure to pollution and lack of shade.
USC Trees is a project of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Public Exchange initiative, which connects academic researchers with policy, industry, and nonprofit partners to tackle complex challenges.
Earlier this month, the USC Dornsife Public Exchange, the City of LA, and the LA Conservation Corps welcomed Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, for a first-hand tour of the city’s heat response efforts. The biggest problems and how different agencies, community groups, and levels of government can work together to solve them.
There are no trees on the school side of West 67th Street. (USC Photo/Steve Cohn)
“I think this collaboration shows the value of research universities in addressing these big societal issues,” said Monica Dean, climate and sustainability practice director at the USC Dornsife Public Exchange.
Origins of USC’s Urban Trees Initiative
The Bethune Middle School project will begin early next year, but the research leading up to this moment has been years in the making, the dean said. USC Trees published its first strategic guide on tree planting opportunities in 2021, identifying Eastside communities such as Lincoln Heights, El Sereno, and Ramona Gardens as areas of high need.
Then, from August 2021 to December 2022, USC Trees began surveying areas of Boyle Heights, University Park, and City Terrace/East LA to identify locations with the greatest need.
In the University Park and South LA zones, just over one-fifth of residents are between the ages of 0 and 14 or 65 and older, making these two groups the most at risk of negative impacts from extreme heat and pollution, according to USC Trees. That’s it.
“We are in the very fortunate position of having a faculty that cares about the communities in which we work and live, and who want to partner with cities and nonprofits to maximize their resources, energy, and efforts. Yes,” the dean said. .
Visit from Washington
Visual evidence of the upcoming project is scant, with only a few painted markers on the sidewalk indicating where trees will be planted. But as representatives from the city and the University of Southern California walked with Mallory down West 67th Street and watched students exit through the school gates, the need for trees became clear.
Bethune Middle School is located just east of Highway 110, so the hundreds of thousands of cars passing nearby are clearly visible from where students enter and exit the school. It’s an experience you can’t get just by looking at a map, and that’s why visits like this are so important, Mallory said.
Mallory said during the visit, “we gained a better understanding of the nature of the challenges and what more is needed to provide additional support.” “Planting trees is a valuable step, but from a policy perspective, if we are serious about expanding access to nature and making it available to all communities, we must plant trees. What other elements do you need besides providing that?
Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, was also in attendance to learn about urban tree initiatives. (USC Photo/Steve Cohn)
Mallory’s visit to Los Angeles also included a roundtable discussion at USC Village, where the presidential advisor met with researchers, local government representatives, and nonprofit leaders to improve urban greening across the city. We talked about the challenges we are working on and our current projects.
USC Urban Trees Initiative: Community Partnership
USC Trees is a collaboration of the USC Dornsife Public Exchange, the USC Dornsife Spatial Sciences Institute, the USC Dornsife Carbon Census network, the USC School of Architecture’s Landscape Architecture program, USC’s Office of Community and Local Government Partnerships, and the City of LA.
The site outside Bethune Middle School is just one of the projects awarded to the city through a U.S. Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry grant. The grant will also support the planting of 2,500 street trees around schools and along neighborhoods, improving air quality and providing a variety of health benefits to residents.
The area represents an “urban heat island” with heavy traffic and little shade, said Amy Schulenberg, tree planting project coordinator for the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation and Environment. That’s why planting trees is not just for aesthetic purposes.
“If we can lower the ambient temperature in front of schools and homes, we can save lives outside as well,” Schulenberg said.
