Community Corner

Minnetonka Named Tree City USA

The Tree City USA program is sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation.

For the 17th consecutive year, the city of Minnetonka has been recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree City USA community for its commitment to urban forestry.

Minnetonka has met the four standards to become a Tree City USA Community, including having a tree board or department, a tree-care ordinance, a comprehensive community forestry program and an Arbor Day observance and proclamation.

The Tree City USA program is sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation in cooperation with the National Association of State Foresters and the USDA Forest Service.

Find out what's happening in Minnetonkawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Right now, there are more than 3400 communities that are a Tree City USA. And besides the 50,000 residents of Minnetonka, 135 million other people across the country currently live in a Tree City USA.

According to the Arbor Day Foundation, there are at least 15 reasons that a city should strive to be a Tree City. They say the designation: 

Find out what's happening in Minnetonkawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

  • Encourages better care of community forests.
  • Touches the lives of people within the community who benefit daily from cleaner air, shadier streets, and aesthetic beauty that healthy, well-managed urban forests provide.
  • Recognizes and rewards communities for annual advancements in urban forestry practices.
  • Increases public awareness of the many social, economical and environmental benefits urban forestry practices.
  • Provides education to improve current urban forestry practices.
  • Builds cooperation between public and private sectors to effectively manage urban forests.
  • Encourages, supports, and strengthens effective urban forestry programs in diverse communities nationwide.
  • Can make a strong contribution to a community’s pride.
  • Serves as a blueprint for planting and maintaining a community’s trees.
  • Puts people in touch with other communities and resources that can help them improve their program.
  • Brings solid benefits to a community such as helping to gain financial support for tree projects and contributing to safer and healthier urban forests.
  • Helps present the kind of image that most citizens want to have for the place they live or conduct business.
  • Tells visitors, through signage, that here is a community that cares about its environment.
  • Sometimes gives preference over other communities when allocations of grant money are made for trees or forestry programs.
  • Provides a way to reach large numbers of people with information about tree care.

For more information from the city of Minnetonka, click here.

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