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- Hacker News
- 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 cities constantly die. Spain is in large parts a desert etc.
I really hope we find a solution/adapted plants to keep cities from heating up so much.
by Jakob - London here: can see 12 trees within 30m from the back, 10 from the front; 50m from a neighbourhood park, 300m from Burgess Park (140 acres), probably 700m from Southwark Park (60 acres) (all of these are well tree-d)by zimpenfish
- I can't see any trees from my window right now. But that's just because I'm in the groundfloor of a shophouse (in Singapore).
Yes, it's pretty green here.
Now, if we could ban street parking like Japan did [0], and perhaps take some more inspiration from Dutch traffic planning..
[0] Ideally we'd get the Gahmen out of the car parking business completely.
by eru - I live in a rain forest, so this post confused me for a minute. I was expecting some kind of on-screen optical illusion, but it turned to be asking about actual physical trees outside my window.
Yeah, I can see trees. I can see about fifty trees without standing up from my desk. I cut down more than three trees a month, probably. The weirdest ones are yagrumo - in about five years they can be fifty feet tall and the wood is so soft you can cut them down with a butter knife, just about. Before moving here, I'd never really considered that the Venn circles of "tree" and "weed" can overlap.
by Vivtek - What do you think of life there in general? Do you think it's a reasonable idea, or one of those things that sound great on paper but then turns out only very specific types of people will actually enjoy it.by anal_reactor
- Some photos would be really awesome. What does a view in an area that passes the test look like compared to one that doesn't? 3 trees doesn't sound like a lot, I don't have a good mental concept of this.by rendaw
- indeed, i can see more than three trees, but the tree cover is probably... 1%?by isoprophlex
- Here you go. Hot off the press for you. My house which passes the test.
https://jamiecurle.com/posts/trees-3-30-300
Northumberland, UK.
by jamiecurle - 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.by spacedcowboy
- 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.by Sharlin
- Tree cover is great but I wish cities would just consider shade a bit more. As the world heats up, it's insane that so many places humans need to be for extended amounts of time have enough shade for a handful of people at best and often nothing. I'm thinking long sidewalks, waiting areas, playgrounds.by ccppurcell
- Long sidewalks could also be covered with solar roofs for shade, but trees have the advantage that they don't block sunlight in winter without leaves, when sun is nice (in colder climates).by lukan
- No because I planted a tree very close to the window, blocking view of other trees.by uberex
- 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.by red75prime
- So somehow it confirms not seeing three threes is an indicator of the wrong plant coverage ;)by kkarpkkarp
- It’s maybe a good rule of thumb, but as I’m just outside of Helsinki for a while now, I’ve just realized what’s the difference between here and everywhere in central and south Europe: the trees are large and old. Even if there are trees in Vienna, Budapest, Brussels etc they are small, and very young compared to here. Even in the greener small Belgian villages, they are not that green than here, just outside of Helsinki’s city center.
And here, somehow, that stupid excuse that they destroy utility cables and pipes didn’t cause to cut them out. It seems that it’s possible to solve this.
And of course, I’m basically in a forest. There are trees everywhere. The “park” here is an at least 100 years old forest. There is one about 30 meters from here, and about 500 meters an even larger one, where I’ve just lost today.
Of course, the city center is different, but even comparing the outskirts of other cities, this is very-very green.
by ruszki - As they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 (or 200) years ago…by roughly
- Depends on what part of Budapest. One of the reasons people like Zugló (14th district) is the many trees. And farther out it's even better, of course.
But a lot of the trees in Hungary just don't grow that big, maybe the most marked difference when I first saw it after growing up in Indiana. When we lived in the 16th district of Budapest, there was one neighborhood I used to walk the dog in that had these massive old American sycamores. Those things were beautiful.
by Vivtek - I think these simplifications end up hurting more than helping.
30% tree cover looks very different depending on the trees your municipality chooses.
For example, Barcelona covers everything with a variety of Platanus, which is easier to keep than other trees, but it’s quite dirty and produces A LOT of pollen. For me, that I’m allergic to it, it just makes the city unavailable for 2-4 weeks every year.
Having smaller plants, with more variety also feels much better than just sprinkling the right amount of massive trees with equal spacing. I’m pretty convinced part of the “we need more green” feeling people get is actually “I need something in my environment to not look like a grid”.
by xondono - I also think these are harmful simplifications, for several reasons.
First of all, I'm skeptical about the study that proves that people seeing three trees have better mental health. There are so many factors that it's hard to separate one. A solid study would compare families living in the same building, roughly at the same floor, and with similar parameters (family size, income, education, street noise, etc.). Comparisons from different buildings induce too many side factors. I think that collecting this sample would be very hard. I can't access the full-text behind the paywall, so I don't know their methodology, and their abstract is vague, so I fear the paper is meaningless.
Then do people really watch that much through their windows? I'd be surprised that having a glimpse of a few trees at home once a day could change anyone's life.
Even if trees did has a positive impact on mental health, I suppose inciting people to bike or walk (at least partly) to workplaces and stores would dwarf that impact, for mental and physical health.
Lastly, the 30% of tree cover seems arbitrary. For the same percentage, would covering every street with trees have the same impact as keeping trees inside parks? I think the goal to provide places where people go for a walk requires different solutions than the goal to reduce the heat in a concrete jungle.
by idoubtit - > Having smaller plants, with more variety also feels much better than just sprinkling the right amount of massive trees with equal spacing.
The thing people want from trees is shading and general cooling of the environment. Small plants provide much less of that and the summers are increasingly hot.
by watwut - 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 exaggerating a bit, but it's quite noticeable compared with other cities after you realize it. And there are random trees in other areas, outside City of London.
by luuundonjk - What? London is one of the greenest cities in the world.by mickeyp
- The City is not central London, horrible place, dead at the weekend. (Shudder)by jjgreen
- On the other hand, when I visit Venice - which is as tight a city as can be, small streets with stone in every direction except the sky - they somehow manage to drop trees in stone squares.
Same shock, different direction, much nicer.
- Different countries / geographies have these very different relationship with nature. I remember coming back from small islands in the caribeans, and there nature is overwhelming, the size and density. Just after landing home (france) I felt suddenly naked from the lack of vegetation, there were trees but one every 400m on large avenues. It felt empty.by agumonkey
- Agreed when it comes to the City of London (for anyone not familiar, this means the financial centre). It can feel pretty grim walking there at times.
Elsewhere though, possible to plan continuous walks through greenish spaces. One starting at Victoria: Belgravia back streets, Hyde Park, Grosvenor Square, Marylebone High Street, Regents Park, Primrose Hill, Belsize Park, Hampstead Heath.
- Maybe we're both right and wrong at the same time.
Here's a map of the canopy data.
by jamiecurle - 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 an afterthought. But your assessment is factually incorrect.
See for yourself. Go to Google maps, drop a good few street view randomly around the city and you'll see that more often than not you'll see trees.
Also, I have a networks in arboriculture who work in the city and they're never short on work.
I'm not doubting your experience of unease or a concrete/glass wasteland (that's yours and not mine to question) but the facts don't support the statement of no random trees on pavements (side walks).
I live in the North, but I'm often in London.
by jamiecurle