Hmm... tell me again why I would want to live in Silicon Valley?
The Lost Oaks of California Ave
81–90 of 120 posts
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#82Could the trees have been infected by Dutch Elm Disease? I've regrettably seen many old trees cut down from it, and you can't see much damage until it has progressed significantly. Granted, I've never seen it affect an entire street full of trees at once, so that seems suspicious...
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#83A similar situation almost occurred in my home town of Galway, Ireland. The main square, Eyre square, has historically been shaded by trees - Wikipedia says early ash was planted in 1631 - but the council wanted to remove 80 of 105 of them, "because the landscape levels were to be altered".
There was a lot of opposition, though, and eventually they backed down.
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#84I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holl…
Sure, it looks ugly now, but I think it'll look decent in two years, and pretty good in five. I actually agree that it will look better with uniform height trees than gradually replacing trees. It just doesn't seem like that huge of a deal. The street is temporarily ugly. This too shall pass.
Hm. Tree-lined avenues don't really get into their own until a few hundred years, if you ask me.
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
California Ave. is notably nice because that pattern of building is now illegal in most parts of the Bay Area and the United States as a whole. People like visiting walkable cities and the walkable enclaves of their own suburbs, but if someone actually proposes building something like that, people raise hell. "Mixed-use is not appropriate for this site," Palmer said. "It impinges on the little residential neighborhoo…
Reminds me of the parochial mindset that caused me to leave Connecticut: residents on tiny twisty roads in wealthy old towns that didn't want a yellow centerline or white edge markers painted on the road because it "would lose its character." Forget all the automotive deaths attributed to people coming around blind corners too close to the middle of the road. Forget drivers in the rain or fog who can't tell where the…
Then ban cars. Seems like a simple solution to me.
:)
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#86I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holl…
It looks like a street in LA.
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#87Relevant: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dis...
Very relevant. He says very eloquently everything that's wrong with American city planning, with pictures. He doesn't mince words, either.
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#88It is sad though, that Cal. Ave, is considered on the most nicer areas of Sillicon Valley. There is nothing really special in it that you can't find in any dinky town in the us, minus the charm that small towns have. Compare to any nice areas to Cambridge, or W. D.C. or NYC, or Boulder. With the money flowing in the area, that that's what they can achieve? At least during the gilded age, the rich folks built memorial…
When I first moved to the Bay Area, I was puzzled by how "blah" Silicon Valley is. The land of innovation is suburbia and strip malls? A cultural desert? My manager at Palm, who had grown up in Cupertino, said that Sunnyvale and Cupertino were "the two most boring towns in America".
Did they outside all beauty and culture to San Francisco? Or did they just not care?
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#89They may have suffered from Sudden Oak Death. My limited understanding is that because the disease spreads erratically they prefer to remove infected trees in order to prevent others from becoming infected, and to prevent damage being caused from the dead, weakened tree. Edit: It appears there is no known cure, only preemptive measures. http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/
That was my first thought too. Here a PBS QUEST feature about sudden oak death in California: http://www.kqed.org/quest/radio/sudden-oak-death
Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave
#90I drove by today on El Camino and I thought it looked naked. Now I know why. Freaky. That said, I had a diseased oak lose a limb , if it had hit someone , or my car, it would have really done some damage.