The Gap Between Research and Reality in Urban Wood

The urban wood movement has long argued that fallen city trees are more than waste—they are an underutilized resource with environmental, economic, and cultural value. A recent dissertation by Bradley C. Almond at Southern Methodist University takes a deep look at a question many in the industry have quietly asked for years: if the value proposition is so compelling, why have municipal-scale urban wood reclamation programs been so slow to emerge?

The research paints a picture familiar to many practitioners. Across the United States, millions of urban trees are removed annually due to storms, disease, development, and infrastructure conflicts. Historically, most of this material has been chipped, burned, mulched, or sent to landfills despite decades of research demonstrating the environmental and economic advantages of higher-use recovery. Almond’s work highlights estimates that urban wood waste could produce billions of board feet of usable lumber each year—potentially supplying a meaningful percentage of domestic lumber demand while simultaneously extending carbon sequestration through long-lived wood products.

Yet the dissertation argues that the challenge has never been about the lack of raw material or even the lack of market demand. Instead, the obstacle appears to lie in the disconnect between municipalities and the growing private-sector infrastructure already capable of processing urban wood. Through surveys of municipal officials, researchers, advocates, consultants, and urban wood practitioners, the study found that successful programs are rarely built by government alone. Public-private partnerships consistently emerged as the critical factor separating stalled concepts from functioning programs. 

This finding reflects what many within the Urban Wood Network have observed firsthand over the last decade. While municipal governments often recognize the environmental value of urban wood utilization, they frequently lack the operational expertise, staffing structure, risk tolerance, or market connections required to run milling and product distribution programs effectively. Meanwhile, private urban sawyers, woodworkers, brokers, and manufacturers have steadily developed the equipment, networks, and consumer demand needed to support a functioning circular economy around urban wood.

One of the more compelling themes in the dissertation is the idea that municipalities may have underestimated the potential of collaborating with these emerging private networks. Rather than operating as standalone municipal enterprises, future reclamation models may be more successful when cities focus on facilitating supply chains, coordinating material flow, supporting policy development, and reinvesting value back into urban forestry programs. Almond notes that this “reforestation hub” concept—where reclaimed wood revenues help fund future tree planting—remains one of the movement’s most promising long-term visions.

As proof of concept for these ideas, the Urban Wood Network has developed a publication to guide municipalities and private firms interested in developing an urban wood utilization program by exploring how two cities, Stoughton, Wisconsin, and Harrisonburg, Virginia, have implemented successful initiatives.

The dissertation also highlights a broader cultural shift occurring within the urban wood industry itself. What began decades ago as a landfill diversion strategy has evolved into a conversation about carbon storage, circular economies, local manufacturing, and material provenance. Increasingly, urban wood is valued not only for sustainability metrics, but also for the stories embedded within each board—stories of neighborhoods, storms, historic trees, and regional identity.

For members of the Urban Wood Network, the research serves less as a critique and more as a confirmation of where the movement currently stands. The infrastructure for meaningful urban wood utilization is developing, but scaling the impact will require stronger alignment between municipalities, arborists, mills, designers, manufacturers, and community advocates. The future of urban wood may ultimately depend not on whether the resource exists, but on whether partnerships strong enough to support it can continue to grow.

Citation

Almond, Bradley C. The State of Municipal Scale Highest Use Urban Wood Reclamation Projects. Doctor of Liberal Studies Dissertation, Southern Methodist University, 2025.