I live in Shanghai and this year 120 new parks are or will be opened. In addition to the new parks, the city plans to add 1,000 hectares of green space and 2,000 hectares of forest. The same goes for many tier 1 and tier 2 cities.

https://english.shanghai.gov.cn/en-Latest-WhatsNew/20250403/94282ce601784f899121341e2d39e3f0.html

Most of the precious waterfront along the Huangpu river are walk and bike trails for 45 kilometers, filled with different parks and flora.

In the few years I have lived here, the city has turned green. Along most streets are trees to keep cool whilst biking. Most westerns think China is dirty, polluted, desolate place but the amount of new forests that are and have been planted all over the country, is quite astounding.

Reach out to the Arbor Day foundation and see what kind of resources they can send you. There’s also a group called tree city USA that will give your municipality a gold star and a special sign and put them on a list if they have some number of trees. After you win trees you can fight for native wildflowers and reeds and become a bee city USA member too.

Getting shit done in local government is all about greasing your turd up so it flies out and lands with a triumphal plop. Almost all of that is planning and preparation because it’s not like you can reach up in there with both hands and rub castor oil on that stuck fucker.

So start by talking to people around you. Don’t tell them you’re planning on submitting some thing, just hear out what they have to say. Write it down afterwards so you can come back to it later. One thing people always bring up with trees is the cost and the damaged sidewalks and roads. It’s easy to figure out the cost, just call the municipal maintenance office and ask how much it would cost for them to take care of 200 more trees than they have to deal with now. Same thing for the sidewalks. Often times they’ll say something to the effect of “we’d have to replace em one year earlier than we were already planning on doing”.

Anyway figure out what you actually want to do, what it’s gonna cost, who’s gonna do it, what the effects will be, who’s it gonna piss off, how they’re gonna be ameliorated etc.

Once you have the effects of what you’re proposing all together you wanna bring it up to the right committee or board. For you the reason to do this as opposed to taking the tom goes to the mayor route is that the committee will have a bunch of people who can ask the right questions and get your turd perfectly shaped and lubricated. Once they like it they’ll do an up/down vote on a motion to move it to the governing body of the municipality.

The whole point of going through the committee is to take that path instead of having to be a person who gets on the nightly news yelling in meetings. It means your proposal will be part of the consent agenda, which is a bigass packet of “stuff we all agree on and have already decided to do” that gets a big up/down vote. People who have their stuff in the consent agenda might speak in support of their particular thing, but it’s usually more of a “we should all be proud that with the adoption of this proposal we’re increasing walkability, property values, safety, natural beauty and improving the lives of our community members” as opposed to “here’s my cockamamie scheme to plant trees!”.

Anyway that’s how you do it. Once the consent agenda you’re on gets passed you just gotta do what you said you were gonna in the way you said you were gonna using the resources you said it would take.

I think, something to be aware of is that it’s not just shade. It’s not just cooler below the tree. Trees also store and evaporate water, which cools the whole area. This summarizes the cooling effect quite well:

Tree implementation reduces peak monthly temperatures to below 26 °C in 83% of the cities. Trees can lower pedestrian-level temperatures by up to 12 °C through large radiation blockage and transpiration.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01908-4

And well, ultimately if we accept that climate change is a thing, planting trees now is the cheapest investment we can make to combat the heatwaves in 10+ years from now.
It will reduce heat deaths. It will reduce AC costs of everyone living there. And it will mean that the city doesn’t lose out on taxes from people choosing to stay inside during a heat wave.

A city counsel meeting would be my go to. But you’re going to want to search all the benefits and how it could save them money because they’ll only see dollar signs.

Id also include how much prettier and nicer the town would look, how they can promote it as good PR “we’re fighting climate change right here at home and keeping you cool while we do it! And we’re using local nurseries to get it done so we’re also promoting local businesses!” Bonus if they plant native trees.

By force, guerilla gardening.

It’s usually pretty easy to get your voice heard in a municipal government. You should look into what the processes are to get on the microphone at a meeting.

In a city, there’s no promise you’ll get the time of day, though. There might be 20 other Karens complaining about too many tree leaves, or not enough open space by the sidewalks.

If your city has committee meetings that are open to the public, try to attend them if you can. If they allow for residents to ask questions or make requests, you can ask there.

Depending on the size of your city or town it might also have a parks and recreation department. If there is one, you can inquire there how you can go about adding more trees to enhance or expand green spaces.

Also, check any community boards you come across. There might be arborist groups that focus on stuff like this. Even if there isn’t one in your city, there might be one that focuses on the county or state (assuming you are in the US, if not, whatever larger land allotment applies to your country).

Basically it begins with networking. Try to find others that share the same desire for more trees and green spaces and the willingness to effect these positive changes, there is power in numbers.

Hope this helps :)

Contact your neighbors on FB and Nextdoor. The more taxpayers you have on your side the better chance you have. One person shouting will be ignored. Fifty people at a city council meeting will get noticed.

Trees are expensive to maintain, in addition to cracking sidewalks and roads, they need water, the leaves need to be cleaned up, they need to be trimmed, and they pose a liability risk so need to be covered by insurance.

You need to figure out what land the trees get planted on. If it is private land, you should search if your area has a program to plant trees. If so, then try to assist them in getting trees planted in front yards.

If it is public land, try to identify the location and reach out to the appropriate government agency to convince them to plant trees. Again, there may be private or public programs to plant trees at little/no cost to the land owner.

My area was hit by a derecho about 5 years back. We had 140+mph straight line winds for about an hour straight, and it devastated the area. A huge percentage of old growth trees got snapped like toothpicks. A couple years after, the city planted trees in all of the easement for a good portion of the residential area. Had to have been thousands of trees. I got 6 because I’m on a corner.

So my answer is have mother nature tear everything down then they may just do it.

Well, there’s the guerrilla option, but it’s significantly more difficult with trees than it is with flowers or smaller plants.

Best is if you can find native species that are threatened with extinction or some kind of tree that is beneficial to threatened native insects or birds that enjoy a protected status. Any protected status could help keep the project alive even if it was not sanctioned, but it’s still a struggle to do guerrilla style.

Do some research about the types of trees that will easily grow in your environment without any/much watering or fertilizing beyond getting them established, which can be anywhere from one to five years depending on how harsh the climate is and how tough the tree is.

And for acceptance from the city, go for fruitless varieties. They will typically balk at anything that produces fruit because it attracts rodents and will require maintenance. Also avoid trees that sucker easily or sprout prolifically from seed, especially if they’re going near sidewalks.

Also do the research on how much asphalt, cement, sidewalks, parking lots, etc. contribute to increasing temperatures and the difference when they’re shaded by trees. It’s a substantial difference.

If you can present a plan to whoever is in charge near you that offers them a way to win points on the environmental arguments without adding any type of city workload or responsibility, you might just be able to pull it off with their blessing or even some financial support. You can try framing it as a community project or community outreach project. Try to get the trees discounted or donated by local nurseries in exchange for some kind of advertising. Get the planning and planting done by volunteers. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Alternatively, you can get a bicycle or even an e-bike. The higher efficiency and speed means you’re using less energy and staying cooler doing it. And as a bonus you can explore more widely, covering more ground in the same amount of time, and even use it for transporting things from the store or going to work.

Best of luck to you!

Edited to add: Make sure the planting is at least done under the guidance of someone who knows how to plant trees. It is actually quite easy to fuck that up and ruin the trees prospect for survival.