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I do a lot of traveling and one thing that divides American Cities with the rest of the world is the large number of large trees in urban areas. Fly into MOST American Cities and you will see a sea of large trees. Most American cities have houses with yards with grass, trees and flowers and lots of land in-between left as woods or fields.
Fly into cities in Asia, Europe and Latin America and the development is very dense with little room for trees- outside of parks. Sure there are some trees but they are planted, generally small, and cover a small area.
Development patterns at the neighborhood / street level basically reflect the regional patterns -- in the US there is just a whole lot more room for things like trees. In contrast, the more dense cities of other parts of the world have better transit and such...
I've said this over and over again, chet, and people get all defensive and post cherry-picked pictures of trees in European cities. They like bricks and concrete over there. Even the trees are popping out of the bricks in some of these European promenades.
I've said this over and over again, chet, and people get all defensive and post cherry-picked pictures of trees in European cities. They like bricks and concrete over there. Even the trees are popping out of the bricks in some of these European promenades.
I don't think they were cherry picked, the point was no trees was an overgeneralization. And the northern European cities lack trees is really only true of some central areas, more or less depending on the city.
Most of the reason I reacted so much was you seemed to expect lots of greenery in a city center, I thought it was an unreasonable expectation. Particularly Germany, which has lots of greenery once you get further out. Since further out is the newer areas of a city, more likely the locals actually do like greenery, the areas full of bricks and concrete are old areas, often with little space for no greenery.
As to the OP's question, it's kinda two separate questions.
1) Why are non-American cities denser? — higher density = less space for greenery
2) Why do non-American cities have less greenery? Similar density neighborhoods sometimes have less greenery.
Fly over Paris and the only areas with big trees is in parks, the rest is apartment buildings for as far as the eye can see.
Fly over Washington DC and there is millions of trees and a good number of people live in Single Family Homes with yards and lots of room for greenery.
I don't think they were cherry picked, the point was no trees was an overgeneralization. And the northern European cities lack trees is really only true of some central areas, more or less depending on the city.
Most of the reason I reacted so much was you seemed to expect lots of greenery in a city center, I thought it was an unreasonable expectation. Particularly Germany, which has lots of greenery once you get further out. Since further out is the newer areas of a city, more likely the locals actually do like greenery, the areas full of bricks and concrete are old areas, often with little space for no greenery.
I never said "no trees" for any city, anywhere. And heck, the excuse is either 1) the war (WW II) destroyed all the trees, but that was 70+ years ago; heck we have trees in our yard that we bought 25 years ago and brought home in the back of our car which now tower over our house out here in dry Colorado, OR 2) the old areas have little space for greenery.
I never said "no trees" for any city, anywhere. And heck, the excuse is either 1) the war (WW II) destroyed all the trees, but that was 70+ years ago; heck we have trees in our yard that we bought 25 years ago and brought home in the back of our car which now tower over our house out here in dry Colorado, OR 2) the old areas have little space for greenery.
You said the cities overall, though not "no trees'. I definitely never made (1) I just said (2).
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