By a number of measures, the state of North American hardwood resources in 2008 is very good, and especially so in the United States. Despite relentless population growth and urban expansion, the area covered by forests in the U.S. continues to increase, with the extent of timberland classified as hardwood expanding as well. Moreover, the standing volume of hardwoods in all diameter classes and in the vast majority of species groups is rising, continuing a sixty-year-plus trend of increasing timber inventory. Further increases of 15 to 20 percent are expected in the hardwood growing stock inventory through 2030. Timber inventories have even been rising in recent decades on a per capita basis, traceable to a net growth to removals ratio that has exceeded 1.7 for the last 30 years consecutively.