Watering and maintenance are a big cost. Iirc it's about $1000 to plant a tree. $100 for the tree and $900 for the irrigation and labor to plant it. In the first 10 years of the program 2/3 of the 106,000 planted trees were removed due to accidents, storms, not enough water/aging. [1]
[1] https://www.phoenix.gov/content/dam/phoenix/heatsite/documen...
Expecting something like that work without questionable degree of investment to make some tree work survive of its element is contradictory to all the adaptations that make plant life suitable for arid climates (i.e not providing a ton of area to the sun relative to their mass).
The Phoenix report is valuable because it provides lessons that should be avoided going forward: change the laws so property owners are not liable if a tree outside their business hurts someone, don't plant a tree if you can't irrigate it, work with local residents to plant and water trees to save on labor and increase success, etc.
If there's other municipal shade reports I'd love to read them. Helping people find shade is what I do for a living. [1]
[1] shademap.app
ThunderF00t Busted! videos on scammy startups keeping on raising money for this fundamentally unworkable idea:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc7WqVMCABg - Zero Mass Water
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vss1ke5tTvI - Fontus self-filling water bottle
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vss1ke5tTvI - self-filling water bottle lab experiment what would be reasonably possible
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfmQcY_sEt0 - WaterSeer part 1
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gPSyU564Io - WaterSeer part 2
Drinking game: drink every time he says "it's a. de. humidifier."