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Can you see three trees?

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Re: Can you see three trees?

#141

Post by garethrowlands »

pm215 wrote: post #20
luuundonjk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about trees on sidewalks and streets, not about parks.

The city government tracks data on public realm trees, and has a nice map based visualization of it: https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environm... and if you zoom in you'll see that many of these are streetside trees. Personally I have always felt that most Japanese cities are very devoid of urban greenery compared to UK towns and cities.

That map doesn't seem to include the trees in actual parks. Somewhere like Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park has actual woods.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#142

Post by derektank »

sandworm101 wrote: post #124

Alternative approach: Screw parks. Parks are not nature. Parks are a sanitized parody of the natural world. They are a simulation meant to make us humans feel better about ourselves. They are gated grass farms, not wild areas, useful only to a select few animals (nothing bigger than a raccoon). Creating a park inside a urban area diverts land from actual nature. So, rather than build parks inside cities, we should de…

Gated grass farms are great places to exercise and socialize, much more so than truly natural spaces. The small amount of land space within urban areas dedicated to parks is not a serious detriment to nature, certainly not when compared to the vast majority of other current land uses

Re: Can you see three trees?

#143

Post by rigrassm »

Access to nature was something I sort of subconsciously selected for when I moved a few years back to be closer to the kids. It got me curious how close my situation was to the idealized standard in the post and I have to say, I think they nailed it.

I'm a little lucky to have found a house that borders a large therapeutic horse riding center so looking out my back windows (chain link fence on the back so minimal obstruction) I am looking straight into a small forest. That aside, my own property has 3 trees between 25' - 60` tall out front and out back there's an 80' tall sweet gum tree (it's lucky I value it's existence slightly more than I loathe the 6 billion stupid spike balls out drops for me every year) an 80' (I believe) maple, and a useless 95' Pine tree that the squirrels are slowly De-Branching).

It's a small property in the suburbs so those trees give me well over 30% coverage so I've got 2/3.

Quick check on Google maps and unfortunately I'm 483 meters away from my neighborhood park so I missed the mark there. But I think having 3-4 large parks all connected by 15+miles of hiking trails, a botanical garden, and an arboretum within a 5 mile radius more than makes up for that extra 183 meters.

Having spent the last 3+ years living with this level of access to nature spaces, it's become the bare minimum I expect from wherever I move in the future. And if I'm honest, I'll likely not be happy with anything less than being able to see more nature than society when I step out of the house..

Re: Can you see three trees?

#144

Post by rigrassm »

sudosteph wrote: post #93

A few years ago, I spent a summer renting a 1 bedroom new build apartment in the south part of Seattle. The only outside light or fresh air came from a sliding door that overlooked an interior parking garage. It always smelled like fumes. Couldn't even see the sky from most angles. I was convinced after that that living conditions without access to fresh air and nature are probably one of the more potent causes of ne…

I did a summer working with a traveling survey crew for pipeline work on the East Coast back in the 2010's. We started up north in Maryland and followed the pipeline south down to the North/South Carolina border.

Because we had to move to new sites further south every 3-4 weeks on average, we all had camper trailers and just hopped from campground to campground as we went. Towards the end we ended up staying at a campground near Mooresville NC and every day since we left that place I've wanted to go back.

It was so beautiful and quiet with so much history to explore and it left a huge impression on me. Might be time for me to actually pick up and go visit again.

Unrelated but there needs to be a guide given out to southerners visiting Maryland warning them to not call anyone under the age of 100 sir/ma'am... Might have just been bad luck with my encounters but I had a couple of people get very angry for calling them ma'am and it was so hard to undo a lifetime of defaulting to using those terms when talking to people I don't know lol.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#145

Post by t_mahmood »

My previous house, which was a pretty big "modern" house, on 7th floor, had no tree in view, I didn't realize how it affected me, but everyday I grew more cluster-phobic, days went I was having sudden panic attacks, with sudden imagination of being stuck in a closed box.

Now we changed to a much smaller house on 5th floor, it's so much older than the previous house, but it has a lake side view full of trees, I can look out and see them from my window.

And now I realize in some extent, how badly the previous house affected me. My cluster-phobic episodes are completely gone, and I don't have those stuck feelings any more. I know I still have it, i feel it coming if the door knob gets slightly stuck, and takes little bit more time, but other then that none of the actions that used to cause it, not causing it anymore.

In our city we build jail cells for house in the name of safety. So all windows of the house are grided with no way to get out of the house in case the front door caught fire. But these trees gives me peace. I don't have to look at them, knowing that they are just by the window, makes me so much relaxed.

I still can't fathom how people can cut them down

Re: Can you see three trees?

#146

Post by uberex »

red75prime wrote: post #72
uberex wrote: post #33

No because I planted a tree very close to the window, blocking view of other trees.

I was in the same situation (I didn't plant the tree though), but just a week ago they cut it down (planned tree removals). Now I can see 20 trees.

We can solve this by cutting down all trees, then building a 1000ft skyscraper with 3 oak trees on top.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#147

Post by sudosteph »

rigrassm wrote: post #144
sudosteph wrote: post #93

A few years ago, I spent a summer renting a 1 bedroom new build apartment in the south part of Seattle. The only outside light or fresh air came from a sliding door that overlooked an interior parking garage. It always smelled like fumes. Couldn't even see the sky from most angles. I was convinced after that that living conditions without access to fresh air and nature are probably one of the more potent causes of ne…

I did a summer working with a traveling survey crew for pipeline work on the East Coast back in the 2010's. We started up north in Maryland and followed the pipeline south down to the North/South Carolina border. Because we had to move to new sites further south every 3-4 weeks on average, we all had camper trailers and just hopped from campground to campground as we went. Towards the end we ended up staying at a cam…

Small world. I'm from the town directly south of Mooresville. I'm fond of the area myself. Traffic is pretty awful though.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#148

Post by maxldn »

ricardobeat wrote: post #116
gpvos wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, apparently Amsterdam somehow doesn't satisfy the 30% criterion at all. Can anyone find detailed numbers? I live there and my street is lined with large trees.

Was thinking the same. There must be some glitch in how this is calculated, as we definitely have >30% tree coverage in every city. Maybe the vast areas of shrub-filled countryside and farmland are skewing the data.

Not sure. 30% sounds like a lot. The streets in central Amsterdam _might_ have 30% cover if you don’t count the water, but what about the houses, gardens, etc?

Re: Can you see three trees?

#149

Post by maxldn »

drcongo wrote: post #74
lmf4lol wrote: post #8

One thing that I really really like about living in Amsterdam, is that we have trees and plants everwhere. Also, for 2 years now, city stopped cutting most of the plant growth in parks and on the side of roads. Its so beautiful green and colourful now and insects are having a great time. I counted this year already 6 different sorts of humblebees in my garden.

One of the reasons I moved from London to the town I'm in now was how much effort our local council puts in to maintaining the town's greenery. There's dedicated wildflower areas all over the place to encourage insects, which in turn encourages the bird life.

Haha. Those are things I like about Hackney

Re: Can you see three trees?

#150

Post by BenFranklin100 »

ryukoposting wrote: post #120
neogodless wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are zoning laws in the United States at the federal level? Or by township and city? Does every city in America have the rules you mention, or specific ones?

> and trades open green space parks for shorter, 1-2 story buildings. Misleading. American cities have lots of short buildings, but they also have more land to put stuff on, be it trees or buildings. > The lower density means people are further away from the few parks that do exist too. In some parts of the US, this is absolutely true. In others, it absolutely is not. Silicon Valley is easily the worst place I've eve…

I can’t decide if you’re ignorant or duplicitous. Go read up on zoning and educate yourself. I don’t have the time to debunk all this nonsense. For instance, it is not generally legal by right to build up to five stories if made of wood. Far from it. The vast majority of neighborhoods forbid such construction.
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