The Increasing Influence of Urban Environments on US Forest Management

"The expansion of urban land promises to have an increasingly significant influence on US forest management in the coming decades. Percent of the coterminous United States classified as urban increased from 2.5% in 1990 to 3.1% in 2000, an area about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. Patterns of urban expansion reveal that increased growth rates are likely in the future. The most urbanized regions of the United States are the Northeast (9.7%) and the Southeast (7.5%), with these regions also exhibiting the greatest increase in percent urban land between 1990 and 2000. Forests near urban communities face a special set of challenges that will only intensify as these communities grow in area, population, and complexity." [Abstract]