in Newark there's a concerted effort to help residents live a happier longer healthier Life by planting more trees the lack of greenery in urban areas can be traced back to racist housing practices like redlining it also contributes to higher temperatures and more significant health problems now with the help of federal funding the state's largest city will get a boost to its Urban forests Melissa Rose Cooper reports today is a symbol and a sign and substance of us creating that kind of transformation of us being able to together as a community to plot our own course to be able to make our own way to tell the world that you may try to drive communities like Newark to its knees but we will rise Senator Cory Booker is celebrating a push to create more green spaces in Newark the Biden Administration is offering one billion dollars in Grants as part of its investing in America plan the goal is to expand urban community access to Nature with environmental friendly projects like planting trees it's been well documented that low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color have fewer trees and therefore higher temperatures a lot more than uh White upper income areas some low income blocks in the Northeast have 30 percent less tree cover and are hotter by seven degrees Fahrenheit uh compared to wealthier areas that's according to a study by The Nature Conservancy seven degrees might not sound that much life or death if you're an elderly grandmother don't have air conditioning in your apartment the USDA forest service is also allocating 250 million dollars to support tree planting in urban areas 11 million of which will be dedicated to New Jersey Environmental Protection commissioner Sean Latta Redd says the funding will be a great help in the fight against climate change we have a risk of sea level rise two times greater than most other places on the planet we have seen extreme precipitation increases in the last 23 years by 10 percent and when we look forward it can go up to 50 environmental Advocates say tree planting in Newark will help bring the city one step closer to building healthier communities there are many places in our city that don't have any trees and they don't have any tree cover and children play outside still in a breed toxic air and they don't have the natural defenses that can help protect and clean the air in the water and so we're looking forward to ameliorating that and while urban forestry experts agree planting more trees is a start to advancing environmental justice they say it's just as important to make sure communities have the resources they need to keep trees flourishing because the stuff we really want out of a tree takes time to grow if we just throw trees at a community to make ourselves feel good about redressing uh past wrong um that's doing something to the community not doing something with the community Newark business administrator Eric Pennington confirms the city already has a plan to make sure this happens norc has been training local residents on green infrastructure for two years with more than 50 residents trained and hundreds more who will soon be registered in future cohorts Newark will have local residents positioned to plant the trees maintain the green infrastructure projects and lead the companies that get the government contracts environmental Advocates say planting more trees will not only create cleaner spaces but also allow residents to really enjoy the beauty of where they live for NJ Spotlight news I'm Melissa Rose Cooper