Reconstruction of Urban Forests: Post World War II and the Bosnian War

This book will address the destruction of urban forest in nine cities by bombing during World War II and the Bosnian War  and their reconstruction in the post-war years.  After reviewing the general objectives and results of aerial bombing, the book explores the effects of bombing and the reconstruction of urban forest in London, Coventry, Hamburg, Dresden, St. Petersburg, Stalingrad, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Sarajevo.  Sarajevo stands out among these cities because the destruction of its urban forest was the result of citizens cutting down trees for firewood during the siege of the city. Most of the cities studied developed plans for reconstruction either during or after the war.  These plans often addressed the planning and re-establishment of the urban forest that had been destroyed.  Urban planners often planned for infrastructure improvements such as new boulevards and parks where trees would be planted.  After the war many of these plans were abandonedor significantly modified.  Cost, resistance by property owners, control of reconstruction by authorities outside of the cities, and the lack of planting stock were factors contributing to the failure of many of the plans.  Exceptions occurred in Hiroshima and Coventry where the destroyed cities became symbols of national reconstruction and every effort was made to redesign the destroyed portions of these cities as memorials to those who lost their lives and to demonstrate the rebirth of the cities.  In several of the cities studied individual citizens undertook on their own the replanting of street and park trees.  Their ingenuity, hard work, and dedication to trees in their cities was remarkable.  A common factor limiting efforts to replant street and park trees was the lack of nursery stock.  During and immediately after the wars nearly all nurseries that had supplied trees for city planting had been converted to vegetable gardens to produce food for the urban populations.  The slow return to the production of trees for urban planting was a common factor in the time required in many cities to restore their street and park trees.  There are lessons to be learned by urban planner, urban forester, and landscape architects from this book that will be useful in the future destruction of urban forest either by natural or man-made causes.

Joe McBride is Emeritus Professor of Urban Forestry in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his bachelor degree in Forestry from the University of Montana in 1960, followed by a master's degree in Forestry from Berkeley in 1964, and a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969. His research has focused on studies of urban forestry, the influence of land management on forest succession, and riparian woodland ecology. His research in urban forestry has included studies of the reduction of air pollution by trees in urban areas, transition of pre-settlement forest to urban forest in California, the influence of biome characteristics on the structure, function, and management of urban forests around the world, the reconstruction of urban forests after their wartime destruction, and potential impacts of climatechange on California urban forests.
Judith Stilgenbauer is is a professor in landscape architecture and urban design in the School of Architecture at the University of Hawaii at manoa. She serves as the Director of the Landscape Architecture Program. She earned a MLA degee from the University of California at Berkeley and a Dipl.-Ing. from the Technische Universität München. Her creative work in teaching and applied research focuses on the role of process, performance, and placemaking in ecological urbanism and public open space design across diverse spatial and temporal scales. Stilgenbauer's recent design research has focused on urban land-water relationships and adaptive coastal resilience design. Stilgenbauer is a director on the national American Society of Landscape Architects' Board of Trustees.
Igor Lacan is a University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor for the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in urban forestry. He earned his PhD in Urban Ecology, a MS in Aquatic Ecology, and a BS in Ecology from UC Berkeley. His program of applied research and extension provides technical and policy tools to advance sustainable environmental management. Focusing on urban trees and urban water. He has developed research projects on emerging issues in urban landscapes that have produced extension and outreach materials to transfer findings from the University of California and other academic sources to the practitioners, including landscape professionals, planners and architects, local governments, Cooperative Extension colleagues and other academics, and tree-focused non-governmental organizations.
Sheauchi Cheng is Assistant Trade Director, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, United States Department of Agriculture. She previously worked as a plant ecologist for the Pacific Southwest Forest Experiment Station, US Forest Service, Berkeley, CA. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in forestry from the National University of Taiwan in Taipei, a Master of Arts degree in forest landscape design and planning from the University of Tokyo, and a Ph.D. degree in forest ecology from the University of California in Berkeley. Prior to joining the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, her research was focused on urban forest composition, structure, and function in cities in China and Japan, as well as research natural areas in California. She served a one-year assignment as a volunteer in Afghanistan to help rebuild that country's agricultural sector in 2011.
Scot Medbury is Director of the Quarryhill Botanical Garden in Sonoma County, CA. He formerly served, from 2005 to 2020, as President and Chief executive officer of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. As leader of the Brooklyn Botanical garden he provided vision and strategic leadership to the Garden's highly successful Campaign for the Next Century capital campaign, which added new gardens, refined visitor facilities and expanded and strengthened education and community programs for the next generations of visitors. He earned a B.A. degree from the Jackson School of International Studies and a M.S. degree in Urban Horticulture from the University of Washington.
Deborah L. McBride is Assistant Professor at Samuel Merritt University, Oakland, CA. She earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, MLA degree from the University of California, Berkeley, CA, and MSN degree from Samuel Merritt University and a PhD in Nursing from the University of Hawaii, Manoa.