Just saw my neighborhood get passed over for tree planting because of a faulty algorithm

Our city uses a program to pick where to plant trees, but it always skips over older neighborhoods. If the data is wrong, we're just making green spaces unfair. How do we fix these biased systems before they do more harm?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_drew1mo ago

Shakes me that a computer can look at a historic district with hundred year old oaks and call it "sufficient". My street has cracked sidewalks begging for shade, but the map just sees an old zoning code and moves on. It treats our community park like it's already full, ignoring that half the trees there are sick and dying. That's not smart data, it's a broken rule someone forgot to question.

joelmoore1mo ago

Got neighbors to document trees, now the map's fixed. What did you try?

dylan_owens1mo ago

Our local park's tree survey still shows twelve healthy maples, but I counted three stumps and a bunch of saplings last week. I tried to update the map myself once, but the city's online form crashed my browser twice. Honestly, I'm so bad with computers that I might have accidentally flagged my own house as a hazardous tree. It's no wonder they ignore the data when people like me are trying to help. Now I just point at the screen and complain, which is my real skill.

michaelgrant27d ago

Took a photo and emailed it to the parks department directly.