The following is my revised summary for “The Importance of Urban Forests,” by Amy Fleming.
Amy Fleming’s “The Importance of Urban Forests: Why Money Really Does Grow on Trees,” suggests the potential environmental, financial, mental, and physical impact trees can have on modern living. Referring to public health expert William Bird, Fleming emphasizes the decreasing value of trees within younger generations (5). Bird compares this idea to an “extinction of experience” (qtd. in Fleming 5). In other words, an increasingly scarce number of people will be able to identify with trees as a means of finding groundedness. Due to the stress-relieving qualities of nature, withdrawal from these experiences will become the new normal, resulting in higher levels of anxiety (4). Subsequently, Bird reports that less people will have the “energy to be active” (qtd. in Fleming 5). His point here is that a collective deficiency in self-care will result in increased health care costs. Additionally, as trees become a trivial idea, fewer people will understand the ways in which trees can reduce heating and air conditioning costs (2), encourage “empathy and altruism” (Fleming 4), and promote active lifestyles through the reduction of stress (4). Collectively, lack of understanding will put a heavier financial strain on modern living. One way or another, Fleming suggests that “children will ultimately understand and value nature less” (Fleming 5). Therefore, the accumulative lack of understanding for trees will result in unhealthy lifestyles, air pollution, and financial tension for generations to come.