Los Angeles and New York each sought to plant a million trees, prioritizing underserved neighborhoods. This paper examines how MillionTreesLA and MillionTreesNYC defined environmental justice and assesses their progress. While the literature measures distributive equity using statistics, these programs lacked quantifiable benchmarks, leading to ambiguous outcomes. While only MillionTreesNYC successfully planted a million trees, it did not prioritize underserved neighborhoods to a significant degree. In contrast, MillionTreesLA may have prioritized underserved neighborhoods, yet its records were insufficiently detailed to know for sure. Cities must connect theory and practice, adopting statistical benchmarks and improving data collection to monitor progress toward environmental justice.
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