How Much Green Is There? A lot of the green we see in the cities and suburbs wasn’t there when the Pilgrims arrived back in 1620. People put it there. Many forests and woodlands were cleared to make room for cities. But people can only take so much steel and concrete. They need to have some nature around them too. Even if they were stuck in the cities because that’s where the jobs were they decided to bring back some of nature’s beauty. That’s how we got so many lawns and parks in between all the sidewalks and skyscrapers.