Volunteers in Elk Grove did an assessment and found only 3 thousand acres of streets and sidewalks were covered by trees, compared to nearly 27 thousand acres within the city limits.
Planner John Smoley says officials would like to increase the number of trees by at least 12 percent, because trees provide a wide variety of benefits to a community:
 
A decrease in ambient temperature, a reduction in water runoff, improved air quality…they’re considered good elements of sustainable communities.
 
Elk Grove has teamed up with the very successful Sacramento Tree Foundation to meet its goal.  Residents are being offered free shade trees, although as it turns out, many citizens are interested in flowering trees which do not provide good shade coverage.