kbott comments

[RhoBott]

• overall

• flesh out RMD

**** poster

• beware wording. trees are "poor" in low-income areas. lower-rated on your index, maybe.
• re: your index, keep in mind that not all areas can have big trees planted. are you saying that no tree is better than a small nonnative decid. tree? or is it better to have a "poor" tree than no tree at all?
• native trees + income graph -- consider shrinking axis so there's less white space / empty space. scale to the data.
• tree persistence -- you ask questions re: species but you only show an answer for decid/everg. revise one or both of these in yr presentation.
• add affiliation with reed+class (add griffin from public affairs site if you want)
• ** credit Jeff Ramsay, Urban Forestry, City of Portland **
• many other edits from Andrew (we just talked about 'em)
• tree index + income visualization -- beware. you use green + red in your index to show things about trees, but you ALSO use green and red to try to describe things about neighborhoods AND trees. this is confusing, change one of these to a different color combo.

general questions for you

• are we looking at street tree data or all tree data? pls be explicit
• tree persistence question -- curious how you dealt with this, because last i checked it was problematic as a calculation

*** paper

• your figures are HUGE! scale it back plz.

• why are you using 80% as your cutoff. reference (and cite!) the HUD standard if that is where that number comes from.

• tree index :: tell me more about what the point values are. do i get a point for being S, two for M, one for L ? or is it a point for every foot? ** STRONGLY RECOMMEND [this is from Andrew] running this by Jeff and asking him what he would use for the values. Remember that he has a full-time gig and probably a full calendar, so ask him early, succinctly, and graciously.

• tree index:: I remember Jeff not being terribly interested in native v non. If this is a priority that you have b/c you think native trees are better (for whatever reason) -- I would recommend confirming with him that this is a worthwhile important thing. To be blunt, you might like natives more, but that doesn't mean they are worth more to a forester.

• tree planting data -- hold up. Do you have RELIABLE data on tree plantings from 1990 forward? I was under the very very strong impression that these planting records were only consistent and complete for the last x-number of years. We talked about this...

• native tree planting data -- i think it's incorrect to say that the #natives has "improved". it has INCREASED, but let's not place valuejudgements on numbers
  -- all figures need numbers and labels/captions/descriptions.

• why are evergreens more important? (consistent canopy provided throughout year)
  ** conclusions

• "quality of trees has been increasing" -- be clear that this is based on your index not by some other judgement

• "healthy mix", "small numbers" -- what does this mean? be specific.

• check your "worthwhile goal" w jeff -- right now I feel like you are telling the city what they should be doing. Which -- I do not think is the point here. You are not the experts on trees. You may have skills at looking at data, but I do not believe that you are in a position to say "good" or "bad" or direct future efforts by the city as "worthwhile". I think this is a very dangerous bit of territory and I strongly encourage you to step with caution.

• "low v normal income." ... ... ... ... Nope. Different words, try again, define your categories, and 100% absolutely change your wording. Full stop.

• "planting in low income areas started out poor..." -- again, words. Do not use "poor" when talking about things that are in areas where folks have limited access to economic resources.

Maps is hard to read b/c there's a lot going on here. Consider ways to simplify or make more clear.

• re text associated w first map -- locations are in NE portland, not North Portland. (if in N PDX, they'd be addressed as such in the street name. N Lombard, etc.)

• last map is distorted/stretched in a different way from the other maps. make them match, please.

• adjust axes (various) down if there's a ton of empty space. similar comment from poster graph.

• persistence graphs -- consider dodging, consider faceting. try different ways of comparing these things so that people can see what you want them to see across the groups.

conclusions:

• how long do you expect trees of different types to live? your comments on persistence need to be put in the context of forestry knowledge
• you started out w/ a number of research questions -- and end with one (1) sentence of conclusion related to one of those questions. recommendation: the plots are great. use those in a results-sort of way -- "here is what we found" and then flesh out what that means and put it into context via a longer/larger discussion section.