Data Driven Journalism: “On January 9th of 2017, the official Twitter account of MillionTreesNYC (@MillionTreesNYC) announced that they had reached the initiative’s ambitious goal to plant and care for one million new trees across the City’s five boroughs. Starting in April of 2007 as a joint venture between the city’s Parks Department, private organizations, residents, and community organizations, it took almost 10 years to increase New York City’s urban tree population by an astounding 20%. As of today, there are 5.2 million trees and 168 different species in New York City, providing numerous environmental, economic, and social benefits for all. Trees have been shown to lower surface air temperatures by providing shade, absorb and retain stormwater, and remove air pollutants. The Parks Department, with the help of legions of volunteers, conducts a decennial census of the City’s street trees: those that line sidewalks and roads, as opposed to those inside parks. The 2015 Street Tree Census, a dataset publicly available on the NYC Open Data Portal provides an inventory of the 683,788 street trees across all five New York City boroughs. Each tree is geo-coded and classified by its species, health, and maturity. This data is the backbone of the Park Department’s internal forestry management database…”