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Can you see three trees?
- helloplanets 4mo agoEsbo / 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.
- stevekemp 4mo agoHelsinki 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.
- jurgenburgen 4mo agoOn 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.
- mapontosevenths 4mo ago‘Beneath the pavement, the beach!’
- jamiecurle 4mo agoand three years later, the beech has Ganoderma due to root compaction!
- rendaw 4mo agoSome 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.
- isoprophlex 4mo agoindeed, i can see more than three trees, but the tree cover is probably... 1%?
- jamiecurle 4mo agoHere you go. Hot off the press for you. My house which passes the test. https://jamiecurle.com/posts/trees-3-30-300 https://jamiecurle.com/posts/trees-3-30-300 Northumberland, UK.
- ErroneousBosh 4mo agoNo 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.
- jamiecurle 4mo agoFor 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.
- graemep 4mo agoThere is already a predator species that eats red deer. Just up our venison consumption!
- jamiecurle 4mo agoYes! keep up the good work :)
- alt227 4mo agoThis is very much a true thing in the UK. Deer are overpopulated and causing damage to their environment. As you have pointed out the solution is to eat more venison, but most local butchers stock hardly any of it because of low demand.
- graemep 4mo agoI do not understand the low demand. It can be cheaper than beef and tastes good and is lean. Maybe it needs some promotion? The same arguments that have promoted vegetarianism (healthier and green) are applicable. British eating habits have become really narrow over the years. Its hard to find offal (healthier and greener than just eating muscle meat). Rabbit seems to have pretty much disappeared too.
- psychoslave 4mo agoLooks great, are they interactive maps showing these data?
- lmf4lol 4mo agoOne 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.
- TimByte 4mo agoThis is a good reminder that "green" does not have to mean perfectly manicured
- RetroTechie 4mo agoAlso us Dutchies have this thing called "tegelwippen": https://www.nk-tegelwippen.nl https://www.nk-tegelwippen.nl It's a competition about which municipality can remove most pavement tiles & replace with greenery. People do this on their own too - guerilla gardening style. It's not uncommon to ride through a city street, and see a strip of pavement tiles removed & some flowers in there. Or some plants dangling from a pot attached to a street light. As long as postal workers & elderly people with strollers can still pass, most municipalities support this.
- _heimdall 4mo agoWe did this in front of out old house in Scheveningen. The hofje had a very small shared space behind us so we pulled up the first foot of bricks in the street side of the house and planted flowers.
- drcongo 4mo agoOne of the reasons I moved from London to the town I'm in now was how much effort our local council puts in to maintaining the town's greenery. There's dedicated wildflower areas all over the place to encourage insects, which in turn encourages the bird life.
- maxldn 3mo agoHaha. Those are things I like about Hackney
- luuundonjk 4mo agoI 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.
- mickeyp 4mo agoWhat? London is one of the greenest cities in the world.
- luuundonjk 4mo agoI'm talking about trees on sidewalks and streets, not about parks.
- pm215 4mo agoThe 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/environment-and-climate-change/parks-green-spaces-and-biodiversity/trees-and-woodlands/london-tree-map 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.
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- garethrowlands 4mo agoThat map doesn't seem to include the trees in actual parks. Somewhere like Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park has actual woods.
- spacedcowboy 4mo agoHah, 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.
- Sharlin 4mo agoI just reflected a bit on the fact that there’s essentially nothing but foliage and slivers of sky visible from the windows of the apartment I currently live in, unless you’re right next to a window getting a particularly wide view. Perks of living right at the edge of a neighborhood originally built literally in the middle of forest.
- ImaCake 4mo agoThat 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.
- taffydavid 4mo agoI'm happy to report I can see much more than 3 out every window.
- paulmooreparks 4mo agoSingapore 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.
- Jakob 4mo agoYes, 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.
- eru 4mo ago> 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.
- qayxc 4mo ago> 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.
- Jakob 4mo ago
- jongjong 4mo agoI'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.
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- ReyX 4mo agoONE
- few 4mo agoI learned from geoguessr pro, Rainbolt, that every tree and its species is mapped for NYC: https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org/tree-map https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org/tree-map Now I am curious if there is a dataset for the location of every tree in every city in the world? https://overpass-turbo.eu https://overpass-turbo.eu?
- zimpenfish 4mo ago'pm215 posted [0] earlier which does seem to be individual locations and species for London. [0] https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/parks-green-spaces-and-biodiversity/trees-and-woodlands/london-tree-map https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environm...
- ccppurcell 4mo agoTree 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.
- lukan 4mo agoLong 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).
- uberex 4mo agoNo because I planted a tree very close to the window, blocking view of other trees.
- kkarpkkarp 4mo agoSo somehow it confirms not seeing three threes is an indicator of the wrong plant coverage ;)
- red75prime 4mo agoI was in the same situation (I didn't plant the tree though), but just a week ago they cut it down (planned tree removals). Now I can see 20 trees.
- uberex 3mo agoWe can solve this by cutting down all trees, then building a 1000ft skyscraper with 3 oak trees on top.
- TimByte 4mo agoWhat struck me is that the "three trees from your window" part sounds almost trivial until you actually test it
- throw310822 4mo agoFrom 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? Can we cheat by planting a few very tall trees that can be seen from very far away? :)
- __s 4mo agoHalf dozen trees directly outside my window, but London Ontario is "the forest city" with an initiative to get 27% tree canopy to 34% by 2065
- orbital-decay 4mo agoI opened up Google Street for Valencia (claimed to be the worst in the article) and I struggle to find a street that plausibly fails this test.
- Abimelex 4mo 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.
- mcdonje 4mo agoI 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.
- pvaldes 4mo agoWe don't have the spectacular red Maple or Ponderosa pine forests that America has, this is true, but if this helps, some places in the North and Center of Spain (and many more in the rest of Europe) still look pretty much like Lothlorien. You just need to know where to go. Check Muniellos (oak), Tejera de Tosande (ancient yews and beech) or Irati forest (beech) for example. The inner center and hot south can be more dusty and discouraging, but you can still be surprised by a few, not well known, jewels like Cabañeros, Valsain's pine forest, Alto Tajo, or Grazalema and the last relict Mediterranean -humid- forests in Cadiz. Plenty also of lagoons, marshes and aquatic ecosystems to visit, like Doñana or Daimiel. The biosphere reserve Hayedo de Montejo is located in Don Quixote's land.
- projektfu 4mo agoIt didn't help that the King used them all up in the war with England a couple hundred years after Cervantes. A lot of Europe is trying to reforest now and hopefully that process continues.
- jonplackett 4mo agoAm 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.
- bob1029 4mo agoI 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.
- riffraff 4mo 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42802744
- TurdF3rguson 4mo agoAnywhere tropical is pretty far out from sheep, so that metric is clearly broken.
- RetroTechie 4mo agoYeah wildlife & its variety is a good indicator for how much an area is disturbed by humans. For this reason, I'd prefer to have compact cities with a good amount of high-rise buildings and city parks dotted in between. As opposed to large sprawling suburban zones. That leaves more space for natural areas outside cities where people are few & far between.
- 3rdworldhuman 4mo agoMontevideo, Uruguay here. I can see 3, 300, and 3.000 for sure. Not sure if 30.000. May well be.
- m-schuetz 4mo agoThe 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 counting several adjacent forests as "urban green spaces" within city borders. The roads within the city, however, are mostly barren concrete deserts.
- greatgib 4mo agoTotally random numbers picked up to be a catching name for trying to get celebrity. Could have been 200 meters or 500 meters or 4 trees or 2 or flowers. This is the kind of ideology that is ruining public policies instead of being grounded on concrete and scientific facts and goals.
- bluebarbet 4mo agoAn exaggeration. The numbers just function as a rule of thumb intended to inspire and motivate action.
- sltkr 4mo agoI agree that that's the best way to take these kind of "rules", but that's the opposite of how the blog author presents it: > the 3-30-300 test — a standard that has become the go-to for solving a universal urban problem > 3-30-300 is a catchy, straightforward test that sets a clear benchmark for measuring equal access to nature. > I found that my closest park isn't 300 metres away, it's 400 metres. That's close, but a fail. It's a standard. It's a benchmark. And a park at 400 metres is no good; it must be 300 metres or else it may as well be 4 kilometers away. This isn't treating the test as a useful guidance, but as a hard target. As Goodheart's law states: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. When you focus exclusively on satisfying such metrics, you can end up with ineffective policy. Missing the forest for the trees, if you will.
- traceroute66 4mo ago> I only walked a few of the main streets Person walks along main roads in London and complains they see no trees. Meanwhile in other news .... :) London is one of the most tree-ridden cities on this earth, so I dread to think what "main streets" you were walking along.
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- qrios 4mo agoThanks for sharing! I had no idea about the “3-30-300 test,” even though I always pay attention to city trees. I can, however, easily explain the division in Europe: In Italy (for example, in Palermo), the vigorous growth of many species very often leads to significant damage to infrastructure. Here in Vienna, there’s a directory of trees[1] where you can see, among other things, the species and age. [1] https://baumkarte.at/ https://baumkarte.at/
- oasisbob 4mo agoAs Alex Shigo likes to point out, it's too easy to try and explain infrastructure damage in terms of trees, while giving expansive soils a free pass. That's like explaining frost-jacking of a wall in terms of temperature instead of hydrology.
- xondono 4mo agoI think these simplifications end up hurting more than helping. 30% tree cover looks very different depending on the trees your municipality chooses. For example, Barcelona covers everything with a variety of Platanus, which is easier to keep than other trees, but it’s quite dirty and produces A LOT of pollen. For me, that I’m allergic to it, it just makes the city unavailable for 2-4 weeks every year. Having smaller plants, with more variety also feels much better than just sprinkling the right amount of massive trees with equal spacing. I’m pretty convinced part of the “we need more green” feeling people get is actually “I need something in my environment to not look like a grid”.
- watwut 4mo ago> Having smaller plants, with more variety also feels much better than just sprinkling the right amount of massive trees with equal spacing. The thing people want from trees is shading and general cooling of the environment. Small plants provide much less of that and the summers are increasingly hot.
- idoubtit 4mo agoI also think these are harmful simplifications, for several reasons. First of all, I'm skeptical about the study that proves that people seeing three trees have better mental health. There are so many factors that it's hard to separate one. A solid study would compare families living in the same building, roughly at the same floor, and with similar parameters (family size, income, education, street noise, etc.). Comparisons from different buildings induce too many side factors. I think that collecting this sample would be very hard. I can't access the full-text behind the paywall, so I don't know their methodology, and their abstract is vague, so I fear the paper is meaningless. Then do people really watch that much through their windows? I'd be surprised that having a glimpse of a few trees at home once a day could change anyone's life. Even if trees did has a positive impact on mental health, I suppose inciting people to bike or walk (at least partly) to workplaces and stores would dwarf that impact, for mental and physical health. Lastly, the 30% of tree cover seems arbitrary. For the same percentage, would covering every street with trees have the same impact as keeping trees inside parks? I think the goal to provide places where people go for a walk requires different solutions than the goal to reduce the heat in a concrete jungle.
- tamimio 4mo agoWell, I live up high in a penthouse with an amazing river view and hundreds of maple trees that also change colors throughout the seasons. I wish I could share it but I am certain some of you might geolocate it. Edit: for canada map since the article ignores the country entirely, check https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/country/CAN/ https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/country/CAN/
- sudosteph 4mo agoA few years ago, I spent a summer renting a 1 bedroom new build apartment in the south part of Seattle. The only outside light or fresh air came from a sliding door that overlooked an interior parking garage. It always smelled like fumes. Couldn't even see the sky from most angles. I was convinced after that that living conditions without access to fresh air and nature are probably one of the more potent causes of neuroticism in city-dwellers. Lack of AC didn't help either when it was hitting the 90s at multiple points that summer. This is probably the one area that most cities in North Carolina excel at. We don't have great sidewalks or transit, but we have a ton a trees. Less than we used to though. But from my current apartment, I'm closer to seeing 300 trees than 3. The post-hurricane-Hugo effort to buy out houses in flood prone zones and turn them into greenways was probably the single smartest thing Charlotte and the surrounding towns have done (though I'm glad we got our light rail too - too bad for Raleigh). It's a good pattern - protects the natural watershed, gives wildlife a safe place to live, makes flooding less impactful, and creates pleasant away-from-road paths for walking and biking.
- xattt 4mo ago> The post-hurricane-Hugo effort to buy out houses in flood prone zones … Toronto completed a similar initiative after Hurricane Hazel in 1954. A number of neighbourhoods in valleys were not rebuilt after devastating flooding, and the city was left with wonderful green space, especially in the Don Valley. For me, it’s a “top 10” biking experience, to cross Toronto by bicycle along the trail system. As an aside, it took a minute for me to parse the OP as I initially took it to mean some sort of infrastructure resiliency project (buying outhouses vs buying out houses). (1) https://trca.ca/news/hurricane-hazel-70-years/ https://trca.ca/news/hurricane-hazel-70-years/
- chamomeal 4mo agoGreenville, South Carolina is also totally covered in trees. I think they have a bunch of laws that new developments have to plant trees, cutting a tree down requires planting multiple others nearby. The whole city is just covered in trees. Even in the suburbs nearby. It’s awesome. MD has some replace-felled-trees law, but it’s kinda crappy cause trees can be planted somewhere else entirely. So a big development can be treeless.
- RajX_dev 4mo agocurrently where i am right now its like i am living in a forest , yeah but when i was living in the city it feels like that trees dont exist anymore
- BenFranklin100 4mo agoAmerican zoning forbids taller ~6 story residential building and trades open green space parks for shorter, 1-2 story buildings. The lower density means people are further away from the few parks that do exist too.
- neogodless 4mo agoAre zoning laws in the United States at the federal level? Or by township and city? Does every city in America have the rules you mention, or specific ones?
- BenFranklin100 4mo agoAt the local level. And yes, these local zoning laws are strikingly similar in their opposition to multi-story residential.
- ryukoposting 4mo ago> and trades open green space parks for shorter, 1-2 story buildings. Misleading. American cities have lots of short buildings, but they also have more land to put stuff on, be it trees or buildings. > The lower density means people are further away from the few parks that do exist too. In some parts of the US, this is absolutely true. In others, it absolutely is not. Silicon Valley is easily the worst place I've ever lived in this regard. As a Midwesterner, I had never lived more than ~400m from a park, even in the suburbs. In Santa Clara, I'm more than 1.5km from the nearest public park. Most Midwestern and Eastern cities do not match the "sprawl" archetype that most techies associate with America. Look up "Urbs in Horto." > American zoning forbids taller ~6 story residential building You're allowed to build up to 5 stories out of lumber. So a common archetype for American apartments is a first floor of retail space made of concrete, which serves as a base for 5 stick-built floors of apartments. That's where 6 floors comes from. But the statement on its own is false. You're certainly allowed to build taller, permits permitting (heh), it's just that 5-over-1 is a local maxima for cost efficiency vs. likelihood of getting permits. There are very few cities with laws on the books that prohibit building taller than 6 floors. The issue is that you have to get approval from the city to build things, and residents get angry when you try to build high-rises. So, permits get rejected. This is an important distinction because the route to change is wildly different. We need community attitudes to change about dense housing developments, we don't need to change any law that's currently on the books.
- projektfu 4mo agoI wonder why they didn't mention Atlanta, which probably meets the criteria except perhaps some parts are a little more than 300m from a park. The canopy here is about 47%.
- tetromino_ 4mo agoThe "3 trees out of a window" sounds like an idiotic criterion because it ignores the elevation factor. In the exact same building, it's very likely you will see a couple dozen trees from a 10th floor window, and only one from a ground floor window. But which situation actually puts you closer to the flora?
- nsb1 4mo agoThere! Are! Three! Trees! -- Picard
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- ruszki 4mo agoIt’s maybe a good rule of thumb, but as I’m just outside of Helsinki for a while now, I’ve just realized what’s the difference between here and everywhere in central and south Europe: the trees are large and old. Even if there are trees in Vienna, Budapest, Brussels etc they are small, and very young compared to here. Even in the greener small Belgian villages, they are not that green than here, just outside of Helsinki’s city center. And here, somehow, that stupid excuse that they destroy utility cables and pipes didn’t cause to cut them out. It seems that it’s possible to solve this. And of course, I’m basically in a forest. There are trees everywhere. The “park” here is an at least 100 years old forest. There is one about 30 meters from here, and about 500 meters an even larger one, where I’ve just lost today. Of course, the city center is different, but even comparing the outskirts of other cities, this is very-very green.
- Vivtek 4mo agoDepends on what part of Budapest. One of the reasons people like Zugló (14th district) is the many trees. And farther out it's even better, of course. But a lot of the trees in Hungary just don't grow that big, maybe the most marked difference when I first saw it after growing up in Indiana. When we lived in the 16th district of Budapest, there was one neighborhood I used to walk the dog in that had these massive old American sycamores. Those things were beautiful.
- ruszki 4mo agoSince my current permanent address is exactly in that district, and I lived most of my life near Ors: no, it’s not comparable. Zuglo is nowhere near what’s here. And also, many would grow that big. They are just not allowed. They are cut almost to trunk periodically over there. There are a few trees there which were as high as those 10 floor high rises, but they cut them down or even out, because somehow it’s dangerous there what’s completely fine in Finland.
- roughly 4mo agoAs they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 (or 200) years ago…
- ChrisMarshallNY 4mo agoChristopher Alexander has a pattern: Light From Two Sides[0], that is similar. [0] https://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/aplsample/apl159/apl159.htm https://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/aplsample/apl159/apl159....
- mlsu 4mo agoI had a moment a few years ago (while on vacation) after a long flight. We set a blanket out under a huge tree and napped in the park all afternoon. I was staring up at a massive tree for probably 3 or 4 hours straight, basically doing nothing else. It is remarkable how calming it is to just sit there and stare at a tree. Now everywhere I live has to have a big tree somewhere nearby. There’s one right outside and I spend at least several minutes, sometimes much longer, just staring at it. Staring at a tree, 10/10
- lukan 4mo agoThe staring you discovered is actually an old meditation technic. Trees are nice for it, but so can be many other things. A burning candle, the setting sun, a cloud, a river a rock. Important is doing it with intense focus and not get distracted.
- phatskat 4mo agoI’ve done this both on and off psychedelics, and both are lovely experiences. I also dated someone who wasn’t a particularly “crunchy” hippy type, but she did like to randomly hug trees on our walks to show appreciation. I do it now too, there’s something oddly calming and connecting about it - it may look weird, but that’s par for the course for me as it is
- thewebguyd 4mo agoThere's actually some research to back that up. (Forest bathing & the effects of phytoncides https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2793341/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2793341/) Nature, physical touch (even with non-human objects), and being near or touching a big stationary natural object triggers our parasympathetic nervous system too, helps reduce stress. Everyone should go hug a tree! It's not completely woo woo, there are real biological benefits.
- phatskat 3mo agoThey should! It’s genuinely nice. I know to some this all probably comes off as corny and to that I say: I hope those folks can hug a tree someday, it’s nice.
- BashiBazouk 4mo agoYes. I live in a "forest community" in the outskirts of Portland, OR. But I got a chuckle thinking what do you define as a "tree"? I have three Douglas firs that are big enough that if you cut them down you could build a small house out of the lumber from each one or a medium sized one from all three. I have a similar number of big leaf maples that are not as tall but have huge canopies. Then a whole bunch that are more "urban" sized trees, magnolias, dog woods, Japanese maples. Tons of tree "plants" that are working their way up but I would not consider trees yet. Then the shrubs that are pretending to be trees, camellias, rhododendrons, et. All on a half acre. Then there are the thousands on the hill side across a small valley...
- BearOso 4mo agoIn our small town, the local compliance officer is colluding with a tree-cutting company that has a contract with the city. They lie and claim trees are "dead" and they're constantly cutting them down unnecessarily at the taxpayer's expense. Pretty soon we're going to look like one of those new suburbs that are just concrete and grass, but with old houses.
- bdelmas 4mo agoI would have like to see the map of cities that matches this 3-30-300 rule.
- colordrops 4mo agoI'm in a part of Los Angeles that matches 3-30, but virtually none of the city matches 300, and it's my least favorite thing about LA.
- sandworm101 4mo agoAlternative approach: Screw parks. Parks are not nature. Parks are a sanitized parody of the natural world. They are a simulation meant to make us humans feel better about ourselves. They are gated grass farms, not wild areas, useful only to a select few animals (nothing bigger than a raccoon). Creating a park inside a urban area diverts land from actual nature. So, rather than build parks inside cities, we should develop that land and make our cities smaller. We don't have to go all 40k hive world. Rather, if parks are kept at the urban periphery and/or are connected to each other, then they can thrive as actual natural space. We have modern transport technology. We can bring the people to the park rather than construct a park near the people and thereby deprive Bambi and all his friends of yet another acre of true wilderness.
- lstodd 4mo agoSounds like someone who never tried to walk in a true wild forest. Where if don't have a machete you ain't going nowhere. And while you're pitifully trying to make some way, a bear bites your ass off.
- derektank 4mo agoGated grass farms are great places to exercise and socialize, much more so than truly natural spaces. The small amount of land space within urban areas dedicated to parks is not a serious detriment to nature, certainly not when compared to the vast majority of other current land uses
- Vivtek 4mo agoI live in a rain forest, so this post confused me for a minute. I was expecting some kind of on-screen optical illusion, but it turned to be asking about actual physical trees outside my window. Yeah, I can see trees. I can see about fifty trees without standing up from my desk. I cut down more than three trees a month, probably. The weirdest ones are yagrumo - in about five years they can be fifty feet tall and the wood is so soft you can cut them down with a butter knife, just about. Before moving here, I'd never really considered that the Venn circles of "tree" and "weed" can overlap.
- anal_reactor 4mo agoWhat do you think of life there in general? Do you think it's a reasonable idea, or one of those things that sound great on paper but then turns out only very specific types of people will actually enjoy it.
- giancarlostoro 4mo agoI live next to a greenbelt in Florida, so yes.
- zahlman 4mo ago> Every home, school and office should have a view of at least three trees, be in a neighbourhood with 30% tree cover, and be within 300 metres of a park. The middle one seems a lot harder to me than the other two.
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo agoMe too. The native trees around here aren't very tall and don't do a lot of covering. I'd love 30% but my neighborhood just isn't rich enough to have each yard contributing to a forest to that degree. Maybe if we buried the power lines and turned the utility easements into open space.
- Kyselica 4mo agoIf you need help finding trees near you, you can check TreeFinder.net.
- w10-1 4mo ago> Every home, school and office should have a view of at least three trees, be in a neighbourhood with 30% tree cover, and be within 300 metres of a park Something like this has always been a driver of my home search. I've been lucky/glad to find something, but it's always been a stretch. But as a more realistic policy I would start with homes and with ensuring schools have a play area with plants larger than the kids and too dense to see through. I think the secondary effects on planning are just as important: urban planning goes awry when it fails to consider livability and beauty. Livability includes walkability, non-car transportation, and parking for car-dependent transportation -- things you need to do most days. Beauty has obvious direct effects, but indirectly it also encourages people to take care of the place, and to avoid being seen e.g., as a litterer. As policy encouraging changes, it would be good to start with environmental enhancement sections in each permit, and (if possible) to publish them before they are finalized for people to contribute proposals. This expertise is rare in developers so advice would be welcome, and providing the opportunity would probably encourage people to contribute, with ideas and perhaps funding. (There should be no provision for blocking permits, to avoid adverse NIMBY incentives.)
- rigrassm 4mo agoAccess to nature was something I sort of subconsciously selected for when I moved a few years back to be closer to the kids. It got me curious how close my situation was to the idealized standard in the post and I have to say, I think they nailed it. I'm a little lucky to have found a house that borders a large therapeutic horse riding center so looking out my back windows (chain link fence on the back so minimal obstruction) I am looking straight into a small forest. That aside, my own property has 3 trees between 25' - 60` tall out front and out back there's an 80' tall sweet gum tree (it's lucky I value it's existence slightly more than I loathe the 6 billion stupid spike balls out drops for me every year) an 80' (I believe) maple, and a useless 95' Pine tree that the squirrels are slowly De-Branching). It's a small property in the suburbs so those trees give me well over 30% coverage so I've got 2/3. Quick check on Google maps and unfortunately I'm 483 meters away from my neighborhood park so I missed the mark there. But I think having 3-4 large parks all connected by 15+miles of hiking trails, a botanical garden, and an arboretum within a 5 mile radius more than makes up for that extra 183 meters. Having spent the last 3+ years living with this level of access to nature spaces, it's become the bare minimum I expect from wherever I move in the future. And if I'm honest, I'll likely not be happy with anything less than being able to see more nature than society when I step out of the house..
- t_mahmood 4mo agoMy previous house, which was a pretty big "modern" house, on 7th floor, had no tree in view, I didn't realize how it affected me, but everyday I grew more cluster-phobic, days went I was having sudden panic attacks, with sudden imagination of being stuck in a closed box. Now we changed to a much smaller house on 5th floor, it's so much older than the previous house, but it has a lake side view full of trees, I can look out and see them from my window. And now I realize in some extent, how badly the previous house affected me. My cluster-phobic episodes are completely gone, and I don't have those stuck feelings any more. I know I still have it, i feel it coming if the door knob gets slightly stuck, and takes little bit more time, but other then that none of the actions that used to cause it, not causing it anymore. In our city we build jail cells for house in the name of safety. So all windows of the house are grided with no way to get out of the house in case the front door caught fire. But these trees gives me peace. I don't have to look at them, knowing that they are just by the window, makes me so much relaxed. I still can't fathom how people can cut them down
- Timwi 3mo agoI'm not surprised the Ruhr area (the cluster of cities in West Germany surrounding Essen) sweeps the “30% greenery” benchmarks. This area was especially rich in coal deposits, leading to massive coal extraction during the industrial revolution. There was air pollution and industrial waste everywhere. The area quickly gained a reputation as the dirtiest, most polluted place on the planet. The colloquial term “Ruhrpott” (Ruhr cauldron) came out of this. So in the 2000s, the city governments (Essen, Bochum, Duisburg, Dortmund, etc etc) decided on an ambitious project to counteract this perception. This paid off. Essen made the top three “Europe’s greenest city” three years in a row and won in the third (2015–2017). Sometimes, a history of being known as the worst in something leads to greater enthusiasm to become the best.