This project offers an interactive platform for comparing cities and forests to uncover scalar and ecological relationships. For example, the New York City boroughs have an area comparable to Uaxactun Guatemala, but only has the capacity to sequester a tiny fraction of carbon with tree plantings compared to the forest. The Cities + Forests platform brings ecology to the forefront of the conversation and is inspired by the Urban Observatory exhibit developed by Richard Saul Wurman, RadicalMedia, and Esri,

FEATURES: The dashboard displays two maps. One map with a collection of cities, the other with forests. The two maps are synchronized to be the same scale, no matter which map is zoomed. The dashboard also allows users to swap out the base map to view satellite imagery, lights at night, or a vector-based map.

A mock-up site, compatible with non-mobile devices using a Chrome browser has been embedded below and can be accessed here: https://cosninety.github.io/citiesforests Note that only a small sample of cities and forests are currently available for selection.