▲m-schuetz6 minutes ago
[-] The map does not look plausible to me. I live in Vienna and spent quite a bit of time in the Netherlands. There is absolutely no way that Vienna scores better than Dutch cities when it comes to the question "Can you see three trees when you look out the window?".
Vienna cheekily cheats statistics by including several adjacent forests as "urban green spaces". The roads within the city, however, are mostly barren concrete deserts.
No because I planted a tree very close to the window, blocking view of other trees.
reply▲kkarpkkarp33 minutes ago
[-] So somehow it confirms not seeing three threes is an indicator of the wrong plant coverage ;)
reply▲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.
radu_floricica30 minutes ago
[-] 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.
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.
I'd echo the gp's thoughts. There are parts of the City and the West End that are basically devoid of trees.
My biggest bugbear in London is the number of developments that have a "token tree" with one lonely tree in one corner, often doing quite poorly, presumably included to check some item on a planning consent checklist.
Of course, London has many green spaces and on the whole has plenty of trees, it's just they're quite unevenly distributed.
NoboruWataya1 hour ago
[-] > Of course, London has many green spaces and on the whole has plenty of trees, it's just they're quite unevenly distributed.
I would say they are pretty well distributed through places where people actually tend to live. I live in a pretty average residential area in zone 3 and not only are there nice parks nearby but there are plenty of trees. London is of course massive so I can't say it's the same everywhere but most residential areas I've visited have been quite green. The City and West End (very much commercial/touristy areas) are the exception in my experience.
Maybe I'm just in different places. Normally I'm walking from Kings Cross down Grey street and around Covent Garden type areas.
I'm nearly always on foot. Perhaps it's just because I'm also an arborist and I'm hard wired to see trees and avoid places that don't have them?
The token tree thing is a problem. Daisy Barrington was part of webinar on the topic as part of the Arboricultural Associations webinar series [0]. Rarely do the species planted get based on local ecology and or have a solid aftercare plan. They're normally chosen for immediate aesthetic look (Paper / Himalayan birch being the most common) rather than how they'd exist over time.
In short birch being a pioneer species is short lived (80 years), grows fast towards light and dislikes being pruned. Where as oaks, norway maple, London planes ( some of which are "climax species") etc live for longer, grow slower and respond to pruning better, support local ecology better and some don't mind the pollution of an urban environment so much.
[0]: https://youtu.be/Kql22dZlq6o?t=2407
I don't think the point is that London literally lacks pavement trees. As you say, the London plane is almost part of the city's visual identity in many areas. The interesting thing to me is how uneven the experience can be
reply▲jamiecurle17 minutes ago
[-] Totally, "the city" (EC1/2/3/4) as the GP says is pretty barren, especially the newer built areas.
My guess would be that the bio-diversity net gain calculations put the ecological investment off-site where it was more practical.
It's a shame though as trees and architecture can happily co-exist with each other. Living walls and well kept green areas are entirely possible.
open Google maps at Monument station, find a tree in the area. all the streets in that region of London (let's say 1 sq km) are quite narrow, I would guess there just is not enough space for street trees.
reply▲When I drop a pin to Monument station I see a sign, so I spin the view around. In canon street I see two trees (no leaves - winter). They're hard to see as they're behind a black cab.
Clicking once into Canon street towards those trees presents me with the trees. They're now in leaf and look like Sorbus intermedia "swedish whitebeam" and the key id is the margin on the leaf and the green fruits. Photo was taken July/August as prior to that they're in the flowering phase (beautiful to see btw).
When I spin the view down Canon street I see three mature trees in full leaf on pavements / sidewalks.
As I said in another reply, I'm an arborist and I'm hardwired to see trees and perhaps I subconsciously avoid areas that have none, so maybe that's bias on my part.
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.
I am not sure whether GP means the City or central London in general.
It gets greener as you go further out.
One of the big problems in the UK has been the rise of low maintenance gardens, replacing plants with decking concrete, gravel etc.
adammarples45 minutes ago
[-] They mean the City of London. They capitalised the C and everything, it's a thing.
reply▲The green space exists, but access to it is often something you have to deliberately route yourself through
reply▲What? London is one of the greenest cities in the world.
reply▲drawfloat12 minutes ago
[-] City of London != London, the city
The City is indeed pretty non green
I'm talking about trees on sidewalks and streets, not about parks.
reply▲The city government tracks data on public realm trees, and has a nice map based visualization of it:
https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environm... and if you zoom in you'll see that many of these are streetside trees.
Personally I have always felt that most Japanese cities are very devoid of urban greenery compared to UK towns and cities.
It technically counts as a forest
reply▲One thing that I really really like about living in Amsterdam, is that we have trees and plants everwhere.
Also, for 2 years now, city stopped cutting most of the plant growth in parks and on the side of roads. Its so beautiful green and colourful now and insects are having a great time.
I counted this year already 6 different sorts of humblebees in my garden.
reply▲This is a good reminder that "green" does not have to mean perfectly manicured
reply▲spacedcowboy2 hours ago
[-] 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.
reply▲I read Don Quixote and thought it might be fun to visit some parts of Spain mentioned in the books. Then after looking at some maps and seeing a stark lack of trees, I decided I wouldn't enjoy the trip.
reply▲I like to use wildlife as a proxy for the quality of a location. If you can see things like rabbits and squirrels on a regular basis, you are probably doing reasonably ok. I have to put up fences and other barriers or the deer will eat everything in my yard.
I've seen suburban development that would easily satisfy the three tree test from any window on any property, but they still come off as desolate wastes. The age of the trees seems to be a non trivial factor.
riffraff22 minutes ago
[-] @steerpike on HN coined the "time to sheep" metric, a measure of how long you have to travel before you're surrounded by sheep[0], which correlates reasonably well with quality of living.
Alas, doesn't work very well outside of britain, but it's a good metric :)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42802744
3rdworldhuman15 minutes ago
[-] Montevideo, Uruguay here.
I can see 3, 300, and 3.000 for sure.
Not sure if 30.000. May well be.
reply▲helloplanets3 hours ago
[-] Esbo / Espoo is an odd one out, of those four. The three others look like the olden European cities you'd expect, but you'll have a hard time getting around in Espoo without a car. There are plenty of beautiful neighborhoods in Espoo, but it's basically a large spread of separate suburbs rather than a city in the way the rest are. The actual "Espoo Center" is not very green and flowery either, and it's not really thought of as an actual city center.
reply▲jurgenburgen15 minutes ago
[-] On the other hand it does have a massive central park in the middle which has all kinds of animals, including deer.
I agree that the public transport is not particularly great if you don’t live on the metro or train line. It’s usually faster to drive and even with one person cheaper even when paying for gasoline and parking. Public transport is ridiculously overpriced in Finland.
Even Helsinki leaves much to be desired on that front, the coverage is okay but the ticket prices are ridiculous. It’s not feasible to drive in the center though, takes forever to get anywhere.
Helsinki has a lot of parks, and also housing companies tend to have trees in their gardens, along with trees alongside many of the bigger roads. But even so it's a reasonably dense city.
Espoo is much more spread out, and the areas between them are all full of trees and greenery. So I very much agree with you, I've visited Espoo a few times but without a car I wouldn't want to live there.
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.
reply▲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).
reply▲What struck me is that the "three trees from your window" part sounds almost trivial until you actually test it
reply▲throw3108221 minute ago
[-] From one window? From all windows? And how far from the window they should be visible, and how far can you look? Can you stick your head out?
reply▲That first map seems to map quite closely to koppen climate zones across the continent. Its hard to say whether the climate is decisive here because climate is a big influencer of urban design. However, its interesting that in Australia its the two Mediterranean climate cities (Perth and Adelaide) which frequently get labelled as worse for tree cover compared to the sub tropical east coast cities.
reply▲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.
reply▲isoprophlex2 hours ago
[-] indeed, i can see more than three trees, but the tree cover is probably... 1%?
reply▲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.
reply▲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.
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.
> 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.
Eh, have a look at other tropical cities like Johor Bahru or Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur and you can see that it's very much possible to have way less greenery than Singapore.
The recent trouble with the Borkenkäfer was just a consequence of monoculture. Germany doesn't struggle with keeping forests alive: it's normal at any one time for individual trees in forests to die. Decaying dead wood is important for the ecosystems.
Less than Singapore for sure. Less than European cities, I’m not so sure. I don’t have the numbers but if you do an image search of Jakarta (probably one of the worst vegetation-wise and boasting a population of a quarter of Germany) it still has trees in every picture and many more than let’s say Frankfurt or Madrid. The latter has many photos without a single tree.
reply▲> The recent trouble with the Borkenkäfer was just a consequence of monoculture.
Even worse. It was monoculture of trees that aren't even native to the climate zone. The trees were imported from Scandinavia for their superior lumber quality, and were on edge even without the added stress from droughts and heat waves.
It's much much more complex than that. Climate is only one factor and by far not the most important one. Prosperity and structure of the city plays a much more important role. Singapore is an outlier because it's a rich country on an island the size of a city.
Big cities in Europe are usually surrounded by more rural areas in most of Europe for historical reasons (surrounding farmlands used to feed the city), lessening the need for city parks and greenery since the countryside was surrounding the city. If the city IS the country and even isolated on an island, that's of course not an option.
Another factor is also rooted in history. Like most cities in Europe, Singapore is old, though most of its growth happened in the past 60 years with proper urban planning. Europe's cities on the other hand grew over centuries without any kind of modern urban planning and the pressure of rebuilding quickly after the many devastating wars didn't help either.
Finally there's the issue of money - being one of the richest countries/cities on Earth helps tremendously with building a nice, liveable urban environment compared to some cities struggling to keep basic infrastructure running.
Abimelex41 minutes ago
[-] > People who can see at least three trees from their window have better mental health than those who can't. It seems like the easiest of the three goals to achieve
Here we go, correlation does not equal causation. Simple as that. Planting 3 trees will not give you a better mental health nor will planting 10 trees. But moving in to an environment where many trees grow in front of your window will probably change a lot more than just putting trees in your view.
‘Beneath the pavement, the beach!’
reply▲and three years later, the beech has Ganoderma due to root compaction!
reply▲I'm in Australia and I have view on a mountain so I see too many trees to count. Proximity to a forest was top priority for me and my wife.
Having lived in Europe for many years before, this is something that's most striking about Australia. I live in a state with one of the highest population densities and yet it still feels very sparsely populated relatively speaking.
I'm happy to report I can see much more than 3 out every window.
reply▲jonplackett36 minutes ago
[-] Am I the only one that stared at the photo at the top for 3 minutes trying to see three trees in the photo because I thought it was a post about optical illusions? No, oh ok.
reply▲ErroneousBosh2 hours ago
[-] No data for NW Scotland, presumably because 140mph winds for four weeks of the year (in the local language we call that "January") is incompatible with large trees.
reply▲For sure, it was one of things that got me about Orkney.
Mind you, wars and sheep did have a pretty devastating effect on the Caledonian woodland cover of the highlands. The current population of the red deer aren't helping with natural regeneration. This is one of the reasons for the case for re-introducing predator species.
But that's a complex topic with no simple answers and easy divisions.
There is already a predator species that eats red deer. Just up our venison consumption!
reply▲psychoslave2 hours ago
[-] Looks great, are they interactive maps showing these data?
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