Do San Francisco's Trees Depend on the Wealth of Its Residents?

San Francisco is home to an estimated 669,000 trees, covering about 15% of the city’s total area. But the distribution of those trees is vastly different across the city and is often tied to the wealth of its residents.

That’s according to a Chronicle analysis of tree canopy data from EarthDefine, a geospatial data company. EarthDefine uses an Artificial Intelligence (AI) classification model to detect areas of an aerial image that are covered by trees, as opposed to other ground cover like shrubs, buildings and asphalt. They then calculate the percentage of the total land area that is covered by trees — a metric called “tree canopy cover.”