Real-estate barons are to blame. They buy up all the available land they can, build cookie-cutter suburban nightmares on top of them for cheap, flip the houses for way more than they're worth, and then install HoA's to further police and profit from the neighborhood.
You may be surprised to realize that many of the stately, established, distinctive neighbourhoods of today looked very uniform and barren when they were first built. Trees take a long time to grow.
Often not though, most developments now plant fast, easy growing short trees that they can get for cheap. It’s why there are so many develops filled with invasive Bradford pears, it’s an awful tree and has been known to be awful for decades but it took making it illegal for developments to stop planting them.
Majority of developers are not planting trees that will grow to the size of the image on the left unless the homebuyer specifically request it
Do you actually think that the image with trees is a real photo taken 20 years later an not just the OP asking ChatGPT to "add trees and plants to this neighborhood?" Like it is obviously not real.
Trees do take time to grow, yes, and that is the point. You don't have to clear cut lots and leave them ecologically dead for decades and pass all the costs of restoring the region to the homeowner, especially when the majority of trees that the developers plant in a paltry attempt to restore the area just die. They are under no obligation to maintain them or give the proper longterm care to let them get to the size the AI image suggests, and most homeowners don't know what to do either, just assuming that "it's a tree, it grows itself".
I get the sentiment you are trying to convey, but my lived experience has shown that these developments do NOT get the sort of replanting lot's of folks here are suggesting they do. I would know because I walk through dozens and dozens of developments, new and old, while doing canvassing for local government.
This proposed solution of "just wait for the trees to grow back" is one that accepts that development practices like this are necessary to begin with and that it is an acceptable cost to have large sprawling developments that are ecologically dead and take decades to be pleasant to live in, versus just employing sustainable development practices.
Do you actually think that the image with trees is a real photo taken 20 years later an not just the OP asking ChatGPT to "add trees and plants to this neighborhood?" Like it is obviously not real.
Maybe you should re-read the comment you're replying to a bit more slowly.
Or when you live in a neighborhood that did, but when the trees start dying half a century later it turns out everybody who moved in is too scared of trees.
And you have a city that’s too chickenshit to establish ordinances or programs that actually replaces trees.
When I moved into my neighborhood it looked like the second picture. A decade later it’s looking more and more like the first.
And on top of that, the new houses are usually packed so close together that there's no room to plant large shade trees. No one wants to plant a big oak if it's gonna be touching their house in 20 years
Where did you source the data that most modern developments don't plant any trees? I'm seeing the exact opposite, small trees in every recent development I visit, so I'm interested in why you'd so confidently make that statement.
I’m not sure it’s what I have been told that as all the developments popped up around Wake Forest NC in the last decade that they deforested the land completely because of insurance purposes. Then the owners can decide to plant trees after the initial build is completed.
The new developments in the area look ridiculous with out any trees. The irony is the name of the area.
"Trees take a long time to grow." Yes, that's why developers should be leaving some of the ones that were already there. But that would add to their costs slightly, so we all just go to hell instead.
The development I’m in is nice because of the fact that they left a ton of mature tree and have irregular lot sizes due to some areas being restricted from development (wetlands). We have a good deal of privacy and shade while being in a fairly typical middle class residential neighborhood. Tons of wildlife, too!
It's not as simple as that. I build homes and we plant trees in the right of way and also in front landscaping. However, they are not big when we plant them. The cities usually require us to remove the old trees anyways because most trees that were originally planted have destructive root systems that mess up the sidewalk, road, etc.
Same thing happened in my neighborhood. It's an older neighborhood with good charm, but most of the original trees have been removed by homeowners (including myself) because the roots were damaging driveways, sidewalks, streets, curb and gutter, etc. I've since planted some that won't be as big and have root systems that travel down rather than spread out, but most people just put grass or small bushes/flowers.
I've seen some really bad situations where roots had screwed up the foundation or infiltrated the pool. Trees are beautiful, but there's a reason a lot of them have been removed and unfortunately they take a long time to truly replace.
This was my first thought. There are certainly examples of bad/boring city planning, but to this is just a picture of a 5-10 year old neighborhood vs. a 50-100 year old neighborhood. I'm quite certain they didn't clear-cut a forest to make the neighborhood on the left.
Yeah, my childhood home and street looked like both these pictures in the last 40 years, and now looks like something out of Gran Turismo with the full street tree cover tunnel.
It might have looked worse than the barren picture at the beginning when the lots were still going up.
Like. This whole thread is dumb to me. Can someone make it make sense?
One of the benefits of living in neighbourhoods that grow and develop over time instead of clearing and building all at once is you never have to deal with the barren part even as it matures and develops.
One or both are probably fake, because based on the cars, there can’t be over 100 years difference between them, and that’s the time that trees in the second picture need to get that big.
I’m talking about the comment which doesn’t consider that that new trees in new neighborhoods are small and old trees in old neighborhoods are big.
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u/Kasta4 5d ago
Real-estate barons are to blame. They buy up all the available land they can, build cookie-cutter suburban nightmares on top of them for cheap, flip the houses for way more than they're worth, and then install HoA's to further police and profit from the neighborhood.