Street trees
Street tree inventories in Python, from New York's 2005 and 2015 censuses: species diversity, trees per kilometre, spacing gaps, health, change between censuses and volunteer data.
A street tree census records every tree along a city's streets: where it stands, what species it is, how thick its trunk is, how healthy it looks and what is wrong with its site. New York has done it twice, in 2005 and 2015, and the 2015 census of 652,173 living trees is open data. It is a map of the urban forest and of the city's planting sites, and with a street network it becomes a measure of how fully each neighbourhood's streets are planted.
The guides here load the census, explain what each field records and who recorded it, and measure species diversity, trees per kilometre of street, the gaps where more trees would fit, health against site conditions and change since 2005. Three pages deal with the traps: impossible trunk diameters, recorders who saw trees differently, and neighbourhood codes that match no current boundary.
🧭 Start with the concepts
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⚙️ Then do the task
Step-by-step walkthroughs with code you can copy and adapt.
- How to Analyse New York's Street Tree Census in Python
- How to Measure Street Tree Species Diversity by Neighbourhood
- How to Calculate Street Trees per Kilometre of Street
- How to Find Gaps in Street Tree Planting with Nearest-Neighbour Distances
- How to Compare Two Street Tree Censuses: New York 2005 and 2015
- How to Relate Street Tree Health to Sidewalk Damage and Site Conditions
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