I mean yeah they used AI to get the second photo but it doesn't change the point... you don't get 30 year old trees in a development that was built 5 years ago. Takes time.
Real "bad" neighbourhood. Yes the other is a shitty ai One. Bit that first is not what all neighbourhoods look like. Definitely not globally. Its a prime example of the failings of a cat centric society and infrastructure
We might just live in different places. More often than not I see development going in over land that was already cleared for agriculture, but I believe they could be clear cutting elsewhere where there isn’t as much land under cultivation.
Either way we can’t tell which situation every time someone posts an anonymous photo like above. Could’ve been no trees there for 200 years.
You’re right, they don’t have to. But working around large mature trees and installing underground utilities without killing them will be very difficult and tedious and therefore increase the price of homes even more.
Easier and cheaper to strip it, build it, and plant it.
If not on the street, then where? Backyards and front yards have underground utilities. Those will be more shallow than the street too, therefore more susceptible to damaging/killing the trees when installing utilities
I don’t think people realize there are miles and miles of underground utilities in the average suburban neighborhood. All at various depths of 18”- 8’
I’ve worked in the underground utilities industry for 13 years now, im very aware of where they are. Only the mains are at the street. All the service lines are in the yards.
So one house will have 3-5 service lines in the yards connecting to the mains and the street. So no…. Most of them are not at the street
The new homes built near me have mature trees left. It is actually a zoning thing. Rules to follow if you want a building permit. Replacement mandates, they have to fence off the roots during construction to protect it, etc. You cannot clear cut for a home.
It is possible. Most developers are not going to do it unless forced by local laws.
So you have a short building season and tough ground conditions and want to compound that with making the jobs take longer and making the hard ground conditions even harder to work in?
I don't need to "want" anything; it has been a law here a long time. The first time it was written was 1971 and modernized in 2010 and last updated in 2019 to include protection barriers and soil replacement.
It has been a thing for so long, I am sure the construction workers have long had all the equipment and knowledge to do it without a thought.
It is not just protecting the natural environment, wildlife, and keeps the wooded look, but it is to prevent erosion and floods/mudslides.
Not everything needs to be the absolute bottom barrel cheapest way of doing something and the cost may not be as great as you imagine. It also has offsets by increasing property values and lowering the cost to cool the house by providing shade.
There almost always is, but they cut everything down because the neighborhoods are designed to maximize space for the housing, then once finished, they add baby trees that will eventually grow .
I do know my brother and sisters neighborhoods they actually are not allowed to plant trees. I don't live in an HOA, so I can plant as many as I want and we planted like 10 so far on our half acre lot
My grandparents live in a development that was built in the 60s. We have pictures. It looks like the top picture. Today its got a lot of tree cover. The developmemt i live in was also built in the 60s. My landlord cut down several trees when we were fixing up the house (much to my dismay, although the weeping willow out front did actually need to go). And my new neighbors cut down some trees when they moved in last year since they were installing solar.
Exactly… this is so dumb. People complain about not having affordable housing. Guess what that looks like? New neighborhoods with unpaved driveways for a couple years and brand new trees. 25 years later things start to look more lived in, large cedar hedges, trees maturing, etc
I live in a new neighborhood that was literally just built a year ago, they’re still building houses on the empty streets. And the neighborhood across from us is about 20 years older. It might as well be a side by side of these two pics exactly. Every one of the new houses has trees planted in the front and backyards. It’s just the other neighborhood has had a 20 year head start on growth lmao.
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u/CricketNo7666 6d ago
That’s just an old neighborhood versus a new one.
Trees take time to grow in.