Can you see three trees? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can you see three trees?

#61

Post by drawfloat » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 9:54 AM UTC

mickeyp wrote: post #9

luuundonjk wrote: post #7

I was walking in central London and something felt wrong. I couldn't quite tell what though, but I had this constant feeling of unease. It took me a few days to understand - there are no trees in central London (the City). Sure, you have a small/big park here and there, but no random trees on side walks. It's literally a (beautiful) concrete/glass wasteland. Note: I only walked a few of the main streets, I'm sure I'm…

What? London is one of the greenest cities in the world.

City of London != London, the city

The City is indeed pretty non green

Re: Can you see three trees?

#62

Post by riffraff » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

Jakob wrote: post #31

paulmooreparks wrote: post #22

Singapore here, checking all the boxes. 200m from a neighborhood park with many trees, and ~700m from a GARGANTUAN park, Jurong Lake Gardens, over 4 km in length with many times that in pathways through gardens and around a lake.

Yes, Singapore is great for that. But to be fair with the other cities, it’s very hard _not_ to have abundant vegetation in tropical rainforest climate. Everything grows rapidly and stops at nothing in its way. In other climates, like European ones, this becomes much more complex. Germany struggles even to keep its forests alive with long stretches of missing rain, higher temperatures, and new pests. Single trees in…

FWIW, some fast growing non-native trees now grow trivially in central Europe too.

Ailanthus[0] is invasive as heck and Paulownia[1] grows everywhere too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailanthus_altissima

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa

Re: Can you see three trees?

#63

Post by m-schuetz » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:01 AM UTC

The map does not look plausible to me. I live in Vienna and spent quite a bit of time in the Netherlands. There is absolutely no way that Vienna scores better than Dutch cities when it comes to the question "Can you see three trees when you look out the window?".

Vienna cheekily cheats statistics by counting several adjacent forests as "urban green spaces" within city borders. The roads within the city, however, are mostly barren concrete deserts.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#64

Post by throw310822 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:05 AM UTC

TimByte wrote: post #42

What struck me is that the "three trees from your window" part sounds almost trivial until you actually test it

From one window? From all windows? And how far from the window they should be visible, and how far can you look? Can you stick your head out? Can we cheat by planting a few very tall trees that can be seen from very far away? :)

Re: Can you see three trees?

#65

Post by Jakob » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:06 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #36

Jakob wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Singapore is great for that. But to be fair with the other cities, it’s very hard _not_ to have abundant vegetation in tropical rainforest climate. Everything grows rapidly and stops at nothing in its way. In other climates, like European ones, this becomes much more complex. Germany struggles even to keep its forests alive with long stretches of missing rain, higher temperatures, and new pests. Single trees in…

> Yes, Singapore is great for that. But to be fair with the other cities, it’s very hard _not_ to have abundant vegetation in tropical rainforest climate. Everything grows rapidly and stops at nothing in its way. Eh, have a look at other tropical cities like Johor Bahru or Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur and you can see that it's very much possible to have way less greenery than Singapore. The recent trouble with the Borkenk…

Less than Singapore for sure. Less than European cities, I’m not so sure. I don’t have the numbers but if you do an image search of Jakarta (probably one of the worst vegetation-wise and boasting a population of a quarter of Germany) it still has trees in every picture and many more than let’s say Frankfurt or Madrid. The latter has many photos without a single tree.

79% of all German trees are sick. Monocultures and beetles play a role but the problem is much bigger than that: https://www.bmleh.de/DE/themen/wald/wald-in-deutschland/wald...

Re: Can you see three trees?

#66

Post by RetroTechie » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

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.

Also us Dutchies have this thing called "tegelwippen":

https://www.nk-tegelwippen.nl

It's a competition about which municipality can remove most pavement tiles & replace with greenery.

People do this on their own too - guerilla gardening style. It's not uncommon to ride through a city street, and see a strip of pavement tiles removed & some flowers in there. Or some plants dangling from a pot attached to a street light. As long as postal workers & elderly people with strollers can still pass, most municipalities support this.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#67

Post by dcminter » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:16 AM UTC

jamiecurle wrote: post #12

luuundonjk wrote: post #7

I was walking in central London and something felt wrong. I couldn't quite tell what though, but I had this constant feeling of unease. It took me a few days to understand - there are no trees in central London (the City). Sure, you have a small/big park here and there, but no random trees on side walks. It's literally a (beautiful) concrete/glass wasteland. Note: I only walked a few of the main streets, I'm sure I'm…

I'm not sure what parts of London you were in, but there's many trees in London on sidewalks. There's even a specific species for it - the London plane (Platanus × hispanica) If you're in the very new, constantly rebuilt, concrete jungle that is the very small part of the city, then OK, greenery is going to be hard to spot. Particularly as they tend to nearly always choose the wrong species to plant and aftercare is…

The City of London, aka "The City", aka "The Square Mile" is not the same thing as Greater London or even what's usually called "Central London." I don't think "Central London" has an agreed exact definition, but it's likely what you thought the parent post meant.

The City is a specific area, more or less covering the same area as the original Roman city. It's the original financial district - though a lot of that moved to Docklands at the tail end of the 1900s.

It's much more built up than even adjacent Westminster ("The City of Westminster") and definitely has far fewer trees.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#68

Post by __s » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:24 AM UTC

TimByte wrote: post #42

What struck me is that the "three trees from your window" part sounds almost trivial until you actually test it

Half dozen trees directly outside my window, but London Ontario is "the forest city" with an initiative to get 27% tree canopy to 34% by 2065

Re: Can you see three trees?

#69

Post by greatgib » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:28 AM UTC

Totally random numbers picked up to be a catching name for trying to get celebrity.

Could have been 200 meters or 500 meters or 4 trees or 2 or flowers.

This is the kind of ideology that is ruining public policies instead of being grounded on concrete and scientific facts and goals.

Re: Can you see three trees?

#70

Post by Sharlin » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:33 AM UTC

spacedcowboy wrote: post #10

Hah, looking out my window, I can see about 300 trees, and it’d be more if it weren’t for all the trees in the way. The house is next to a park that’s designed for walking in, with lots of twisty pathways between trees and bushes to give you the feeling that you’re not in a manufactured space.

I just reflected a bit on the fact that there’s essentially nothing but foliage and slivers of sky visible from the windows of the apartment I currently live in, unless you’re right next to a window getting a particularly wide view. Perks of living right at the edge of a neighborhood originally built literally in the middle of forest.