By adamg on Thu., 2/19/2009 - 4:54 pm
Take a look at a couple of dramatic before and after photos of one Worcester street that's had all its trees cut down and ground into a fine powder in the war against the Asian Longhorned Beetles.
Via Daily Worcesteria.
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Comments
great stuff. i love before
By anon (not verified)
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 6:52pm
great stuff. i love before and afters. though it is sad seeing all the trees gone, the street loses a bit of character.
Holy cow, that sucks.
By jchristian
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 11:05am
You can see the property value plummet between the two photos.
Less problems though too
By Kaz
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 12:08pm
Sidewalk trees are always planted with the best intentions but end up being the biggest problems for a neighborhood (even before the whole beetle infestation thing).
They get bigger than they were ever intended and destroy the sidewalk, the road, sewer lines, cable and electric lines. They end up hanging out over the curb and undoing the curb granite and damage parking cars. You want to see a street that's currently owned by it's trees? Try Beals St in Brookline where the JFK House is. Rutted roads, upturned sidewalks, split curbs, a third of the houses probably have root invasion into their sewer lines.
Nobody plans for what will happen in 40-50 years when the trees will be overgrown. Sidewalk/street trees like these should be harvested and replaced every so often anyways...or never planted to begin with.
You're right, and I''ve seen that too
By jchristian
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 3:30pm
on streets where there's a bulging sidewalk, or the tree is eating into parking spaces...
but boy, are they nicer streets then the bare ones!
dull dull dull
By johnmcboston
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 3:33pm
While trees may take a toll on the physical plant, I thing the 'before' picture illustrates what a neighborhood should look like - your quintessential 'tree lined' street.
Looking at the after picture - it looks like a 'new' development. And, form my point of view, why 'new' developments always look, well, wrong. My sister lives in a place built 20 years ago. No one wanted to put large trees in, so 20 years later it still looks like a neighborhood just built, rather than a place that's been there a while. There's no character. The before picture the houses look like part of the community - man and environment co-existing. The after picture looks like we've bulldozed everything. Houses and nothing else belongs here. Very Brutalist.
Choose better trees
By Kaz
Sat, 02/21/2009 - 1:56am
There are trees with shallow and small root systems, trees with very slow growth rates, trees that don't drop seeds all over the place...
But, no, people want big stately trees to "prove" something instead of trying to determine how to viably build a community with your demanded "quintessential"ness while still leaving only a strip of grass about 2 feet wide between the sidewalk and curb.
Unroot your untenable association between big elm/maple trees and "old" community and appreciate something different. You can't have a functional city street AND 40 year old elms behaving nicely with the lack of land you're giving them.
(I haven't even broached the subject of handicap accessible sidewalk widths yet...)
Dare to dream of big trees
By neilv
Sat, 02/21/2009 - 10:40am
Agreed. One can, of course, have huge American Elms if one makes that strip of grass about 4 times that wide. At least, that worked well in my childhood urban neighborhood (West Coast, planned residential district, early 1900s).
If we ever improve walkability/bikeability and transit services to the point that we no longer need much on-street parking, that will give us space to retrofit wider walking areas and room for trees.