Cities are planting trees for aesthetics, which is where urban tree planting often fails. Most songbirds don't raise their chicks on berries or seeds. They raise them on insects, especially caterpillars. One nest of chickadees can need thousands before the young birds fledge. Many common street trees are chosen because they are tidy, tough, symmetrical, disease-resistant, and ignored by bugs. Ginkgos, zelkovas, Bradford pears, London planes, ornamental cherries. Useful in some ways, but weak as bird habitat. 'Bugs leave it alone' is not a wildlife feature that any of us should be chasing. It is a food-web failure. Native oaks can support hundreds of species of moth and butterfly caterpillars. Those caterpillars become chickadees, wrens, warblers, cardinals, vireos, and woodpeckers. Research on suburban chickadees found yards needed roughly 70% native plant biomass to support successful breeding populations. Now look at the average streetscape: ornamental trees, mulch islands, mowed turf, imported shrubs. From a car, it looks green. To a nesting bird, it can be a food desert. Cities should absolutely plant for shade, heat, drought, salt, pollution, root space, and survival. A dead native tree helps nobody. But when we plant trees, the question cannot just be 'Will this survive?' It has to be 'Will this feed anything?' What is your city planting?