While forests are among the most classic common resources, urban forests are generally not thought of as commons, or even as forests. Instead, urban trees are divided up by ownership – private trees, street trees, park trees. They are typically planted and managed individually – truly a case where we fail to see the forest through the trees.

The value of urban forests is clear. Trees that thrive offer significant amenities to their immediate neighbors. Together these trees form the urban canopy, which provides multiple ecosystem services – improving air quality, moderating the heat island effect, managing stormwater, and providing habitat.

As the value of urban trees has become clearer, cities have invested in ‘million tree’ planting initiatives. Unfortunately, these programs too often reinforce social inequalities. Looking at New York City, this chapter examines tree planting through an environmental justice lens, and proposes that considering the urban forest as a unified public commons can be a path forward towards a more equitable city.

The chapter focuses on people’s experiences of natural places and changes in their sense of place through the use of social media. It explores how social media are linked to senses of place and experiences of nature from a social–ecological–technological systems perspective. This is illustrated through four empirical cases representing specific people–place–tech systems, i.e. systems where different social, ecological and tech contexts interact. From a system perspective, those couplings are integrated parts of people’s experiences of nature that bridge virtual and physical worlds, thereby facilitating and communicating cognitive, affective and behavioural social-ecological interactions. These interactions foster novel individual and co-constructed meanings of place and thus plural senses of place; they can also mobilise people around shared meanings of place that are used to question dominant views. Thus, it is argued that social media can mediate and proliferate plural meanings of place, leading to new conceptualisations of senses of place.

Cities have become critical drivers of global socio-economic, behavioural and environmental changes far beyond urbanised borders; their transformative force was recognised with the endorsement of SDG 11 to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. We provide an analysis of SDG 11’s impacts, considering global monitoring efforts and different local priorities linked to diverse urbanisation patterns. We focus particularly on the effects on forests and forest-based livelihoods, and propose a framework to assess synergies and trade-offs between SDG 11 and other SDGs, accounting for a range of city types. In terms of SDG 11 implementation, we found that countries tend to prioritise access to adequate housing and transport, with interlinkages to health, education and employment. Few countries enforce policies to ensure safe, green and accessible public places, or the protection of cultural and natural heritage in and around cities, despite the manifold benefits urban forests can bring. Little attention is given to building strategic social and environmental links between urban and rural areas. A more integrated approach to urban–rural territorial planning could have a positive impact by improving access to ecosystem services and socio-economic benefits generated by forests.