Temporal and spatial variation in garden and street trees in six eastern Australian cities

Trees are an economically, socially and culturally important component of cities, yet in single city studies, appear to be less dense inareas of low income and educatinal status than in areas of high income and education status. We found that this pattern occured in six Australian cities over a period 1961-2006. with conditions in 1961 predicting those in 2006. Tree presence in gardens conformed similarly to predictors bwtween cities, but the presence of street trees and the type of both street and garden trees did not. Our data suggest that it would be possible to plan to double the number of street trees in Australian cities in present circumstances, but that significant increases in garden tree numbers would depend on increasing the income and higher education attainment for lower socioeconomic groups.