MINNEAPOLIS -- The Metropolitan Council data scientists quickly recognized a pattern when they began mapping the Twin Cities' patchy tree canopy.
Neighborhoods with the fewest trees were in the same areas where discriminatory lending practices had segregated people of color and freeway construction had plowed through Black neighborhoods. Communities with abundant tree cover had not been touched by those segregation policies or massive infrastructure projects that uprooted entire communities.
"Once you see it, and once this is pointed out to you, you just can't unsee it," said Ellen Esch, a senior data scientist with the Metropolitan Council.
