Urban Tree Cover and Transit Data for 1,037 Global Cities

1,037 world cities are analyzed for the relationship between rail transit, car use, and tree canopy cover from 2005 to 2020. The dataset includes attributes for car use per capita, rail transit presence, traffic expansion, and controls for income, density, and environmental policy. Benjamin Leffel created this replication data for a study on how public rail shields urban forests.

Use Cases

• Modeling tree canopy cover as a function of rail transit presence and car use per capita across global cities.
• Analyzing the correlation between traffic expansion metrics and urban forest coverage, controlling for city income and density.
• Investigating the role of environmental policy controls in mediating the relationship between car dependence and tree cover loss.

Strengths

• Data covers 1,037 cities, providing a broad global sample.
• Includes a 15-year time range from 2005 to 2020 for longitudinal analysis.

Limitations

• Specific row count, column names, and sample size per city are unknown.
• Data may have geographic bias depending on the selection and representation of the 1,037 cities.

Provenance

Source

Harvard Dataverse, authored by Benjamin Leffel.

Collection Method

Compiled for a study on urban forests and car dependence; specific collection methodology is not detailed.

Time Range

2005-2020

Freshness

Data covers up to 2020, with the repository last updated in April 2026.

Geography

Global, covering 1,037 world cities.