SoCal cities desperately need more shade. Is it time to finally ditch palm trees?
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In Beverly Hills, crews felled more than 50 ficus trees, ranging from 60 to 100 years old, along Robertson Boulevard for a sidewalk restoration project. The city plans to replace them with alternating crape myrtles and Mexican fan palms. Similarly, a pavement restoration plan underway in Long Beach has involved chopping down about 150 lemon-scented gums, a type of eucalyptus, some 90 feet high. The city said it anticipates planting more than 5,000 plants along the corridor, and approximately 260 myrtles and 130 palms.
“As a heat scholar, I look at palm trees and I think that they don’t really do much in terms of heat mitigation,” said Turner, whose work focuses on cities adapting to hotter conditions. “A pole on the side of the street isn’t providing much shade. And a palm tree is kind of similar.”
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West Palm Beach in south Florida announced it was ditching palms to fight the climate crisis because they don’t provide much shade or sequester carbon well. Last year, Miami Beach adopted a plan to reduce the percentage of palms that make up its urban tree canopy from 60% to 25% over the next 30 years. And the city of Los Angeles specifically indicates it will not plant palms as part of its free tree streets program. Neither will Long Beach.
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Trees provide myriad benefits. They capture stormwater runoff, replenish groundwater and slow the deterioration of streets. They clean the air and improve mental health. And increasingly during deadlier and record-breaking heat waves — shade trees cool air and surfaces of the built environment, and can reduce energy consumption for air conditioning by up to 30%. One study by the UCLA Luskin Center found that shade can reduce heat stress in the human body from 25% to 30% throughout the day.
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