Atlanta tree canopy

[2][3][4][5][6] The city's main street is named after a tree, and beyond the Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead business districts, the skyline gives way to a dense canopy of woods that spreads into the suburbs.

[10]The city's lush tree canopy, which filters out pollutants and cools sidewalks and buildings, has increasingly been under assault from man and nature due to heavy rains, drought, aged forests, new pests, and urban construction.

Proposed construction of a police training facility in the South River Forest—a 80-acre greenspace (32 ha) in southeast Atlanta and Dekalb county—has led to ongoing protests.

[13][14][15] The low-density residential subdivision development that dominates the Atlanta area has historically not been required to replace lost tree inventory.

[citation needed] Because of larger lot sizes and natural-looking architecture, such as California contemporary, older neighborhoods typically have many mature forest trees, except in cases where they have been destroyed by homeowners.

[citation needed] Increasing density allowed by zoning since the 1980s has meant fewer and fewer trees left, and by the 2000s it became common for developers to completely clearcut dozens of acres of forest and bulldoze all hills flat to build generic tract housing, often with tightly packed homes nearly touching each other and up against the street.