Please tell this to mediaval towns in Italy.
Cities need more trees
71–80 of 169 posts
Re: Cities need more trees
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh? I've read multiple times that in the UK, private land can't be "fenced off" and the general public has the right to roam on it, as long as they aren't causing a nuisance or getting too close to peoples' homes. Is that only for pastures or something?
Only in Scotland.
sheep dictatorship basically
Re: Cities need more trees
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same in Zurich, where the city tries to establish a “Schwammstadt”. But the tree growth is actually negative, because on private properties people are chopping down their trees to build lucrative housing.
If you look at bellevue i personally think it's disgusting, that loveless massive sechseleutenplatz, lot's of cars always using the horn, what a waste of that iconic place constricted between traemli and a always busy street, tbh even Delhi is less stressful, let alone Vienna. EDIT: Do you mean Schwanstadt right? That lovely smell of birdshit in the sommer plus the massive stink of piss and puke after (and up to 10 d…
No, he means "schwammstadt" (sponge city), the concept idea that you need to create the capacity to soak up excess rainfall and store it like a sponge instead of relying on drainage entirely.
Re: Cities need more trees
#74I also grew up in Johannesburg, and really miss those trees. When you drive a little bit out of the city you see a completely different landscape.
However I'm sceptical about the author's claim that there's no downside. I would assume that most of the trees are not native, and in any case definitely don't grow natively at that density. Feels like there's no free lunch in ecology: is mass tree-planting an exception?
Re: Cities need more trees
#75One of my biggest complains for American cities is the risk adversity with respect to trees. In SF, the city went in a rampage to prune and tear down trees (mostly ficus) because of the risk of the branches falling. There are lots of rules for where you can and can't plant trees based on road visibility, signage, electric cables etc. Result is that you have a lot of tree-less spaces in a city where basically anything…
Kind of an odd flex given how walkable San Francisco is, but the "risk adversity" is because people actually die. Last year, five people died from fallen trees in a single storm (two in the city).
Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world. Five people out of 21 million is nothing. Sure, every death is tragic, but there are a lot more efficient ways to spend time and money preventing deaths than tree trimming.
Re: Cities need more trees
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
For an opposing view, look at what happened during the freeze in Austin, Texas for an example of policies that allow for minimal tree pruning. It was a significant issue that caused the city an incredible amount of damage. Electric was shut down for days, cars were destroyed, houses had trees fall on them, etc. Might still be worth it, but an interesting data point nonetheless.
Albeit being a valid datapoint, the conclusion could as well be that it might be better to put electric power down in the ground, get better insurance, don't park under a tree, and so on…
This is the standard for many cities in the northeast. Power lines are underground.
Re: Cities need more trees
#77Here in Utrecht the Netherlands they are trying to greenify the city to reduce heat stress during the hot months. They try to plant as much trees and plants as possible, they try not to mow grass often and let it grow, they encourage homes to remove tiled gardens and add green, they have programs to turn roofs into green roofs. I like it, the city feels nicer to life in. https://healthyurbanliving.utrecht.nl/fileadmi…
that made me want to live there lol
Re: Cities need more trees
#78Here in Utrecht the Netherlands they are trying to greenify the city to reduce heat stress during the hot months. They try to plant as much trees and plants as possible, they try not to mow grass often and let it grow, they encourage homes to remove tiled gardens and add green, they have programs to turn roofs into green roofs. I like it, the city feels nicer to life in. https://healthyurbanliving.utrecht.nl/fileadmi…
I live at the boundary between city and forests and in summer the temperature drop is really 'incredible'. The amount of energy wasted by urban areas is as much so. But at the same time it's nice because we can restore more trees for shade easily
Re: Cities need more trees
#79> You can still see a stark difference between rich and poor neighbourhoods to this day based purely on tree cover. You can see that here in Sydney. The poorer Western Sydney suburbs have a noticeable lack of tree coverage when compared with the richer inner west, northern, and eastern suburbs. I don't know which direction cause and effect goes. It is plausible that affluent suburbs can afford to plant trees, but it…
Agreed, although I still don't get the fact we continually plant trees that grow taller than the overhead power lines and then the council has to continually prune them into weird shapes to prevent interference.
e.g. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-18/pruning-street-trees-...
A lesson on how not to do things. I'm all for appropriate trees though.
Re: Cities need more trees
#80Would love to see them tear up highways and build forests and not the other way around
It's not quite what you mean, but a woman in Ireland has planted over 1000 trees on her 3-acre plot, which was previously overrun with rushes and thought to be barren.
Here are her before and after pictures, maybe it will inspire you too. https://bealtainecottage.com/before-permaculture/