In Tacoma, growing the urban tree canopy is a community effort

On Veteran’s Day, Sandy Hanks stood in the parking lot of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall in the McKinley neighborhood of Tacoma, Washington, admiring a southern Magnolia tree.

“This past summer, the blinds in the front melted,” Hanks said. “So we've been looking for a good shade tree.”

McKinley, where Hanks lives, is one of the Tacoma neighborhoods that register between ten and 15 degrees hotter in summer than places with better tree cover. The heat dome of 2021 brought the highest temperatures ever seen in the Pacific Northwest in late June, killing more than 100 people statewide. Others sweltered in the heat, like Hanks, on her street in McKinley.

“It gets that kind of exposure. It's too hot. It's like, direct sunlight. And for years, we've been saying, why don't we just plant something right in the strip by the right of way, to shade the house,” Hanks said.