Why do we plant trees in cities? Many people say that trees are good for human wellbeing and the planet. But how has this claim been substantiated, and why and how exactly did trees become integral to the Western idea of what constitutes a healthy city and planet? In the light of global climate change and increasing urbanization, trees have gained renewed attention. However, the fact that they were originally planted in cities for many of the same reasons for which they are today often promoted, is little known and recognized. This book addresses this lacuna in the historiographies of public health, urban, and landscape design. It tells the multifaceted story of how trees became a living infrastructure of public health in nineteenth and twentieth-century cities. Although far from a solely benign and uncomplicated story of progress, the book also provides an argument for continuing urban tree planting efforts.

Sonja Dümpelmann is professor and chair of Environmental Humanities at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. She was previously professor in the department of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Dümpelmann is a historian of urban landscapes and environments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her books include Landscapes for Sport: Histories of Physical Exercise, Sport, and Health (ed., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2022; North American Society Sport History Anthologies Book Award); and Seeing Trees: A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin (Yale University Press, 2019; Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award; John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize). During her time teaching in the United States from 2005 until 2023, she also served as senior fellow in garden and landscape studies at Dumbarton Oaks and as president of the Landscape History Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.