RELEAF CEDAR RAPIDS
Let’s Get Started
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n a place historically called the “Emerald City” for its lush canopy, a “Tree City USA” whose very city seal is a picture of a tree, a powerful derecho ripped through Cedar Rapids, destroying two-thirds of the tree canopy. While houses, businesses, and schools have been repaired in the months that followed, the trees did not miraculously reappear. Sadly, many of the trees felled were the largest, most beautiful, and most cherished.
Completed over a full year under the direction of the City and Trees Forever, the plan was created with a conviction that how we build back matters; that the simple replacement of all that was lost — hard as that will be — is not enough. Cedar Rapids has a real opportunity here, not just to restore its canopy, but to do so in a way that maximizes so many of the things that residents care about: neighborhood beauty, comfort, and resilience; supporting wildlife and limiting global warming; empowering young people and improving equity; and even helping to create community. Trees can do all these things if we do this right. Let’s get started.
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Photographs by The Gazette and Tyler Richardson (top)
Such a catastrophic loss of tree canopy in a sizable American city is, quite literally, unprecedented. It is possible that no other weather event in modern history has killed so many city trees. Extraordinary challenges call for extraordinary responses, and the desire to be extraordinary motivated the ReLeaf Cedar Rapids plan.
