8 ms·

The Lost Oaks of California Ave

152 points by garbowza 17y ago

balding_n_tired 17y ago
Acorns are a tripping hazard? I have never been especially graceful, I have lived under oaks for about half the last thirty years--including at least four that were astonishingly productive of acorns, and bless me if I've ever tripped on an acorn.
- jobu 17y ago
  It happens - my aunt broke her tailbone after slipping on acorns. I don't blame the city one bit. Oak trees are beautiful trees for forests and parks, but they are very messy for public walkways. They drop small branches constantly as well as piles of acorns that attract squirrels and mice.
callmeed 17y ago
Interesting. Where I grew up (San Luis Obispo county in CA), you'd need an act of congress to touch a mature oak tree–even on your own property. Our church actually had to build around one when they did a building project. I bet if an entrepreneur or real estate developer wanted to cut down oak trees for a building project, they wouldn't get past the first step in the permit process ... but I guess when city wants them gone, they can run it through a "Development" association and play the disease card.
- boredguy8 17y ago
  When you make the rules, you also make the exceptions.
- pg 17y ago
  You can't cut down a mature tree on your own property in Palo Alto either. But apparently the city can.
  - bootload 17y ago
    Pity the issue of cutting down the trees wasn't seen before it happened. Browsing through the local news it appears PA doesn't see much value in parks, trees "Guest Opinion: A glimpse back at the history of Palo Alto parks-dedication battles", Enid Pearson ("Initiator of the 1965 citizens' initiative that resulted in the City Charter provision on dedicating city parkland") ~ http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=11579 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=1157...
  - ja30278 17y ago
    I'm sure I'll be in the minority here, but doesn't that seem to stretch the meaning of 'your own property'? I mean, if you can't even cut the trees down, what exactly makes it 'yours'? (aside from the privilege of paying takes on it)
    - Psyonic 17y ago
      "Owning property," at least in the United States, is just a fancy term for describing renting property from the government. The price you pay for the property buys you the contract, property taxes are your rent, and anytime they feel like it they can evict you (eminent domain). And like all landlords, even those as generally hands-off as the government, at the end of the day, they make the rules.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Someone joked a while ago that they suspect you are tailing the logfiles to see who votes you up, I thought it was rubbish at the time, but after seeing this comment and the number of votes I'm beginning to doubt ;)
- NathanKP 17y ago
  They probably took advantage of some neighborhood association clause. You would at least think that they would have asked the residents first, though.
- Gormo 17y ago
  What's the going rate for a bag of termites in San Luis Obispo?
californiaguy2 17y ago
In the city of Thousand Oaks, CA (in socal, between LA and SB), it's actually illegal for anyone to cut down an oak tree. Oak trees are one of the most distinguishing features of the California chaparral landscape - they cover the rolling hills just north of Los Angeles all the way up to the redwood forests in the north. It's actually one of the most important physical features that tie both ends of California together as a single state.
tjic 17y ago
Private owners respect and conserve their resources. Governments (which is to say, politicians with short lifespans in their job) use up resources in a rush to accomplish short term, idiotic goals. You can look at the environmental records of capitalist countries versus centrally managed totalitarian states. ...or you can look at golf courses (which don't "cut down all the trees to keep things tidy") and compare them to the government of Palo Alto.
- ardit33 17y ago
  strange, because in my country, it was during communism, that a lot of trees were planted, both parks/forest, and agricultural one. If dear leader wanted a artificial lake, with lots of trees, next to his villa, he would get it. If he thought lots of lemon trees, and olive trees were awesome, bared hills will be transformed to accommodate all these trees. And it was during the transition to democracy, (and even today), that a whole of these things started getting destroyed. We are talking about commmon areas. As for private property, I can safely say that most europeans love trees. As another anectode, there are some streets in SF where trees are completely missing. And it usually corresponds with the density of asian population. It seems that there is something about a tree, in front of the house/door that hinders the chi flow, or something. But go to Clement st. and there are trees where the more euro shops are, and just a few blocks down, there is little trees where the asian stores are. Some things can be cultural also.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  That's disingenuous. While this act was clearly one of government bureaucracy run amok, to suggest that the same thing doesn't happen on private land is patently absurd.
- hristov 17y ago
  Right, golf courses only cut most of the trees because they are in the way of their fairways. And then they poison the water for the entire area by using all kinds of chemicals in order to keep their grass in a ridiculous unnaturally green color and the course free of animals that may disturb the neatness of the grass. Sorry you cannot make such blanket statements, some times governments do terrible things for the environment and sometimes businesses do the same. People that care about the environment should be vigilant and hold both governments and businesses accountable.
tjic 17y ago
I see the that comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=829044 which reads In the city of Thousand Oaks, CA (in socal, between LA and SB), it's actually illegal for anyone to cut down an oak tree. was marked dead. Why? This seems like it adds something to the conversation, no?
californiaguy3 17y ago
In the city of Thousand Oaks, CA it's illegal to cut down oak trees, even on your own property. I believe the burden of proof is on the owner to demonstrate that property is being threatened by root growth, etc. I'm sure many other municipalities in CA have similar laws, because the oak trees that cover much of the chaparral land from just north of Los Angeles all the way up to the redwood forests are one of the most important physical features that tie together the northern and southern ends of California.
BRadmin 17y ago
From Palo Alto Online - California Avenue trees get the axe: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=13827 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=13827
hedgehog 17y ago
I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holly Oaks and many of them are diseased and in poor condition. Their branches cover street lights and grow over building storefronts and roofs requiring frequent tree trimming. They bear and drop large acorn fruits that are tripping hazards for pedestrians. "The Holly Oaks will be replaced with Red Maples ... smaller seed fruits that are safer for pedestrians ... metal grates will be installed ... which will bring a uniform look to the business district. The existing tree wells in sidewalks are open wells which may be tripping hazards." Funny thing is there are maples on 15th Ave so I've seen how they are through the year. When the maples start dropping sap on people's cars and all of the restaurants' outdoor furniture is too sticky to sit on I don't know what they'll do. I'll just laugh.
- unwind 17y ago
  Heh ... I'm certainly not into "US-bashing", but I can't help think that someone could do quite a lot of that fueled by that particular quote. The City of P.A. thinks it needs to protect its residents from the tripping hazards of ... acorns? Hilarious. :)
  - pyre 17y ago
    Sounds like the people on the beautification project had a lot of inbreeding of ideas. Crap like that just seems a way to justify a decision. I mean how many people actually tripped on those tree wells or on acorns on the ground? How much money is it costing to tear down those old trees and replace them with new ones? This is just a small number of people trying to force their idea of what will look good onto the larger community. Bringing in things like 'tripping hazard' and 'the seeds are more pedestrian friendly' are just way to try and justify their actions/views against people that are outside of their group. It sounds good and all about wanting the trees to be a uniform height, but I suspect that decision was made partially because they expected there to be public outcry. They just wanted to tear down the trees without giving people a chance to rally against the action. Now people are stuck with the decision whether they like it or not.
n8agrin 17y ago
They may have suffered from Sudden Oak Death. My limited understanding is that because the disease spreads erratically they prefer to remove infected trees in order to prevent others from becoming infected, and to prevent damage being caused from the dead, weakened tree. Edit: It appears there is no known cure, only preemptive measures. http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/ http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/
- pg 17y ago
  At first I thought it might be some kind of serious disease. Why else would they do such a crazy thing? But all the other arguments the city listed, e.g. "Their branches cover street lights and grow over building storefronts and roofs requiring frequent tree trimming. They bear and drop large acorn fruits that are tripping hazards for pedestrians." make it clear this wasn't the case. If they were infected by some tree plague, it would have been enough to say just that.
  - pyre 17y ago
    Sounds more like the business owners didn't like the trees and wanted to get rid of them. All other reasons are probably just there to justify it in a way that doesn't make them look like the 'bad guys.'
- dfranke 17y ago
  There seems to be a high incidence of Sudden Oak Death in areas populated by aesthetically-impaired bureaucrats. I recommend a study to determine whether they constitute a potential vector for the spread of the disease, and if so, preemptively eradicating them.
- car 17y ago
  That was my first thought too. Here a PBS QUEST feature about sudden oak death in California: http://www.kqed.org/quest/radio/sudden-oak-death http://www.kqed.org/quest/radio/sudden-oak-death
rglovejoy 17y ago
Something I don't understand: cities and counties in California are said to be broke, so how is it that the Palo Alto public works department is able to send out a work crew to cut down these oak trees? Is Palo Alto running a surplus that they need to spend before its fiscal year is over?
- jfarmer 17y ago
  They've been doing road work up and down College Ave all year, too, so presumably they have money for something.
supahfly_remix 17y ago
It might be sacrilegious to ask, but what does this have to do with hacking (other than say, hacking down of oak trees). The fact that it's ranked so highly just goes to show the amount of ass kissing going on here.
- TriinT 17y ago
  It's a herd phenomenon. Even if PG writes something utterly pointless, he gets upvoted to the stratosphere. It would be nice if this changed. Intelligent and successful people like PG don't need this kind of adulation.
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think this comment shows a slight lack of... something... hmm... This is a bit disorganized, but I'll try to lay out how the gears are turning in my head: When you implicitly call out a community or someone very admired in that community (whose also running things for free for a lot of people's enjoyment), it's courageous but it burns some of your future ability-to-speak-out-and-others-will-listen-edness. If you were to make similar comments frequently, eventually people would just shrug it off instead of burning the mental energy to apply difficult critical thinking. Now, I was one of those disagreeable kids who used to argue with teachers when they got their math or chemistry wrong, and eventually I stopped doing that and started thinking: "Do I want to burn some of my speak-out-and-people-will-listen-edness on this particular topic?" Because you only have so much, and you might want to use it on something important later. Does the tree submission get submitted and voted if it's not Paul Graham or another very admired poster? Probably not. But it's a minor thing to take a banner up against, and it just oh-so-slightly decreases the resources you have by taking up that banner. And maybe it minorly gets on the nerves of a few people, and they don't like it, and so you get oh-so-very-slightly less attention/goodwill in the future. Or maybe not. Just something to ponder.
    - johnnybgoode 17y ago
      Interesting post, but since a lot of people here seem to make a big deal about their objectivity, I can see why this would annoy TriinT enough that he'd post about it. As you imply, he might've thought about it and decided it was worth risking some of that goodwill.
ecq 17y ago
absolutely terrible.
hristov 17y ago
Yeah this is really bad. First of all too many people have the silly idea that you can move trees around as if they are pieces of furniture or large heavy pieces of sculpture. "Oh lets get rid of these trees and put in different ones. Won't this be grand!" Moving trees is always tricky and not assured of success. When they get those new maple trees in california ave, I am sure that at least a couple of them will die and then they won't have equal height trees. As far as the trees being diseased, all city trees are unhealthy in one way or another. That is because their leaves absorb all kinds of exhaust byproducts, most of their roots are below concrete where they cannot get water or nutrients, and a hundred other reasons. Cities are just not healthy places for trees. But that does not mean that we should not have trees in cities. Trees make us feel better, clear up the air for us and make us happier in general. What if a tree is not healthy -- it is not actually suffering and cannot pass the disease to humans. As long as it looks good and it is green, it is serving its purpose. I guarantee you that the new maples they put in will become diseased pretty soon. So, good idea to call attention to this Paul, but someone should have thought of it earlier.
- pyre 17y ago
  Maybe someone should track these people down in a few years when the new trees are installed. Tell them that the new trees are diseased and need to be completely replaced a second time. Then ask them what their opinion is. If their opinion is, "There's nothing wrong with those trees." Then you know that the axed the oaks just because they preferred maples... no other reason.
dfranke 17y ago
I can't recall the details any more, but I'm reminded that there's a historic cemetery in Boston, where several of America's founders are buried, where the tombstones have all been moved from their original locations. Someone during the Victorian period decided they'd look nicer if they were all arranged in nice straight rows. Nobody recorded their original positions, so the locations of the remains are now unknown. So, cutting the trees isn't necessarily a case of corruption. It's at least as likely that CAADA is run by people whose taste really is that poor.
- pyre 17y ago
  The point is that such a drastic action (e.g. cutting down ALL the trees on a frequented, busy downtown area) should be voted on by the citizens/tax-payers. In this case, a relatively small number of people instituted a drastic change without consulting 99% of the people that it would affect. Not only that, but it is an IRREVERSIBLE change. If they had decided to repave the sidewalks or repaint the lampposts, it would be a different story. Had it been a single tree or only a couple of trees (that weren't prominently display -- e.g. signifying the center of town or something) it might be excusable. But to tear down that many trees without any sort of public input on the matter other than 'the public tasked us with beautifying the city' is irresponsible at best and malicious at worse.
thaumaturgy 17y ago
This will have adverse effects on the speed and traffic on that street, too. I've attended a couple of local community seminars on city planning, and studies cited there have found that tree-lined streets tend to cause drivers to drive slower and more cautiously. [1] [1]: For example: http://www.naturewithin.info/Roadside/Tree&Driver_ITE.pdf http://www.naturewithin.info/Roadside/Tree&Driver_ITE.pd...
asdlfj2sd33 17y ago
Relevant: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dis...
- sketerpot 17y ago
  Very relevant. He says very eloquently everything that's wrong with American city planning, with pictures. He doesn't mince words, either.
revorad 17y ago
This reminds of the time they chopped down all the trees along Fergusson College Road in Pune. It was one of the most beautiful streets in the city with trees on both sides forming a canopy almost covering the entire street. The excuse then was creating more space for vehicles and improving traffic flow. The trees are gone; the traffic jams haven't. Very sad.
ardit33 17y ago
It is sad though, that Cal. Ave, is considered on the most nicer areas of Sillicon Valley. There is nothing really special in it that you can't find in any dinky town in the us, minus the charm that small towns have. Compare to any nice areas to Cambridge, or W. D.C. or NYC, or Boulder. With the money flowing in the area, that that's what they can achieve? At least during the gilded age, the rich folks built memorial things, that are part of this country's cultural heritage. Todays' rich, just build bigger pools or planes, and that's it. Tells you something about rich geeks being really introverted, and just want to keep on themselves.
- natrius 17y ago
  California Ave. is notably nice because that pattern of building is now illegal in most parts of the Bay Area and the United States as a whole. People like visiting walkable cities and the walkable enclaves of their own suburbs, but if someone actually proposes building something like that, people raise hell. "Mixed-use is not appropriate for this site," Palmer said. "It impinges on the little residential neighborhood that's been developed." http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=10807 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=1080... Read the descriptions of the projects and see how remarkably tiny they are. Then read the comments. It's quite sad.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
    Reminds me of the parochial mindset that caused me to leave Connecticut: residents on tiny twisty roads in wealthy old towns that didn't want a yellow centerline or white edge markers painted on the road because it "would lose its character." Forget all the automotive deaths attributed to people coming around blind corners too close to the middle of the road. Forget drivers in the rain or fog who can't tell where the road ends and the ditch begins. "It spoils the character" of the roadway, and that's more important than safety. Idiots!
    - barrkel 17y ago
      Then ban cars. Seems like a simple solution to me. :)
abstractbill 17y ago
I used to think most American cities were ugly because nobody cared enough to make them beautiful. Reading this almost makes me think it's intentional. Very sad indeed.
- philwelch 17y ago
  American cities are designed around the automobile. The rare American city that's designed to be beautiful (Portland, for instance) is impossible to drive in, while cities that can be driven in are almost necessarily inhuman sprawl. You'd think that, as a trade-off, American cities would be usable for motorists. But traffic congestion is such a big problem that it's impossible to build a city to satisfy even that requirement.
jonursenbach 17y ago
Where were the tree sitters at?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
e40 17y ago
Are there any Maple trees that do not either drop sap or other liquids or large seed pods? We're all familiar with the mess the former makes of our cars and sidewalks. The latter, at least the ones from Sugar Maples, are a real pain in the ass, clogging storm drains and such.
jrwoodruff 17y ago
This might be unconnected, but having just read PG's piece on publishing, and being in the local news business, it seems as though there may have been meetings about this decision? Published in the local newspaper perhaps? At least, most developments and streetscaping projects around here don't go down with at least a (public) city council vote. I'm not sure what my point is... maybe just that I'm curious what the local media coverage of this is/was?
cpr 17y ago
Is the old Kirk's hamburger joint still there? Wonderful place. (This is dating me--haven't been back there for 20 years.)
- nvoorhies 17y ago
  There's no longer a Kirk's on California. The Palo Alto location moved over to Town & Country village a couple miles away. Kirk's has a few other locations in nearby towns too, though, so I suspect it was more because the California Ave. location was getting old and run down than financial troubles.
fjabre 17y ago
Plenty of Oak trees still here in Cambridge PG as I'm sure you recall. Just beautiful this time of year. =) I'd miss them if they were gone too.
eserorg 17y ago
Your tax dollars at work. It's no wonder that the State of California is bankrupt. While the state of California is piling on _billions_ of dollars in debt to pay for unionized wellfare programs, raising tax rates across the board on its citizens, cutting essential city and state services, closing state parks, issuing "IOU's" to people in-lieu of tax refunds, and seeing its general obligation bonds downgraded below "junk" status, it apparently is still OK to spend taxpayer money cutting down perfectly healthy trees to make sure that all of the trees on a street are the same height. This in a state that has more Honda Prius' per-capita than any other state in the union. Isn't being "green" wonderful? I'm sure there's an entire office of twinkie-munching government bureaucrats that could be fired to compensate the California tax-payer for this gross misappropriation of his hard-earned tax dollars.
EinhornIsFinkle 17y ago
@earthlink.net for the Mayor? Ouch! He probably has a Flowbee and a Zack Morris bag phone to boot.
- pmorici 17y ago
  I emailed the guy and got a response.
Methusala 17y ago
If governments have so much power that they can demolish well loved landmarks in the center of American entrepreneurship, imagine what they can do to a whole state or even country...wait a minute. What needs to happen to save the state and country is the exact opposite of this travesty-entrepreneurs should replace the real deadwood, government on every level. http://lewrockwell.com http://lewrockwell.com
spiralhead 17y ago
People should be pissed about this for a number of reasons. PG--I suggest putting their phone numbers up. Emails are too easy to ignore.
projectileboy 17y ago
Hmm... tell me again why I would want to live in Silicon Valley?
gcv 17y ago
Could the trees have been infected by Dutch Elm Disease? I've regrettably seen many old trees cut down from it, and you can't see much damage until it has progressed significantly. Granted, I've never seen it affect an entire street full of trees at once, so that seems suspicious...
barrkel 17y ago
A similar situation almost occurred in my home town of Galway, Ireland. The main square, Eyre square, has historically been shaded by trees - Wikipedia says early ash was planted in 1631 - but the council wanted to remove 80 of 105 of them, "because the landscape levels were to be altered". There was a lot of opposition, though, and eventually they backed down.
cdibona 17y ago
I drove by today on El Camino and I thought it looked naked. Now I know why. Freaky. That said, I had a diseased oak lose a limb , if it had hit someone , or my car, it would have really done some damage.
christofd 17y ago
I don't mind talking about trees. The bigger picture behind this concept is urban planning, which is a huge issue to be fixed in the U.S. (if you want sustainable development).

152 points by garbowza 17y ago

Acorns are a tripping hazard? I have never been especially graceful, I have lived under oaks for about half the last thirty years--including at least four that were astonishingly productive of acorns, and bless me if I've ever tripped on an acorn.

jobu 17y ago
It happens - my aunt broke her tailbone after slipping on acorns. I don't blame the city one bit. Oak trees are beautiful trees for forests and parks, but they are very messy for public walkways. They drop small branches constantly as well as piles of acorns that attract squirrels and mice.

callmeed 17y ago

Interesting. Where I grew up (San Luis Obispo county in CA), you'd need an act of congress to touch a mature oak tree–even on your own property. Our church actually had to build around one when they did a building project. I bet if an entrepreneur or real estate developer wanted to cut down oak trees for a building project, they wouldn't get past the first step in the permit process ... but I guess when city wants them gone, they can run it through a "Development" association and play the disease card.

boredguy8 17y ago
When you make the rules, you also make the exceptions.
pg 17y ago
You can't cut down a mature tree on your own property in Palo Alto either. But apparently the city can.
- bootload 17y ago
  Pity the issue of cutting down the trees wasn't seen before it happened. Browsing through the local news it appears PA doesn't see much value in parks, trees "Guest Opinion: A glimpse back at the history of Palo Alto parks-dedication battles", Enid Pearson ("Initiator of the 1965 citizens' initiative that resulted in the City Charter provision on dedicating city parkland") ~ http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=11579 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=1157...
- ja30278 17y ago
  I'm sure I'll be in the minority here, but doesn't that seem to stretch the meaning of 'your own property'? I mean, if you can't even cut the trees down, what exactly makes it 'yours'? (aside from the privilege of paying takes on it)
  - Psyonic 17y ago
    "Owning property," at least in the United States, is just a fancy term for describing renting property from the government. The price you pay for the property buys you the contract, property taxes are your rent, and anytime they feel like it they can evict you (eminent domain). And like all landlords, even those as generally hands-off as the government, at the end of the day, they make the rules.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Someone joked a while ago that they suspect you are tailing the logfiles to see who votes you up, I thought it was rubbish at the time, but after seeing this comment and the number of votes I'm beginning to doubt ;)
NathanKP 17y ago
They probably took advantage of some neighborhood association clause. You would at least think that they would have asked the residents first, though.
Gormo 17y ago
What's the going rate for a bag of termites in San Luis Obispo?

californiaguy2 17y ago

In the city of Thousand Oaks, CA (in socal, between LA and SB), it's actually illegal for anyone to cut down an oak tree. Oak trees are one of the most distinguishing features of the California chaparral landscape - they cover the rolling hills just north of Los Angeles all the way up to the redwood forests in the north. It's actually one of the most important physical features that tie both ends of California together as a single state.

tjic 17y ago

Private owners respect and conserve their resources. Governments (which is to say, politicians with short lifespans in their job) use up resources in a rush to accomplish short term, idiotic goals. You can look at the environmental records of capitalist countries versus centrally managed totalitarian states. ...or you can look at golf courses (which don't "cut down all the trees to keep things tidy") and compare them to the government of Palo Alto.

ardit33 17y ago
strange, because in my country, it was during communism, that a lot of trees were planted, both parks/forest, and agricultural one. If dear leader wanted a artificial lake, with lots of trees, next to his villa, he would get it. If he thought lots of lemon trees, and olive trees were awesome, bared hills will be transformed to accommodate all these trees. And it was during the transition to democracy, (and even today), that a whole of these things started getting destroyed. We are talking about commmon areas. As for private property, I can safely say that most europeans love trees. As another anectode, there are some streets in SF where trees are completely missing. And it usually corresponds with the density of asian population. It seems that there is something about a tree, in front of the house/door that hinders the chi flow, or something. But go to Clement st. and there are trees where the more euro shops are, and just a few blocks down, there is little trees where the asian stores are. Some things can be cultural also.
run4yourlives 17y ago
That's disingenuous. While this act was clearly one of government bureaucracy run amok, to suggest that the same thing doesn't happen on private land is patently absurd.
hristov 17y ago
Right, golf courses only cut most of the trees because they are in the way of their fairways. And then they poison the water for the entire area by using all kinds of chemicals in order to keep their grass in a ridiculous unnaturally green color and the course free of animals that may disturb the neatness of the grass. Sorry you cannot make such blanket statements, some times governments do terrible things for the environment and sometimes businesses do the same. People that care about the environment should be vigilant and hold both governments and businesses accountable.

tjic 17y ago

I see the that comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=829044 which reads In the city of Thousand Oaks, CA (in socal, between LA and SB), it's actually illegal for anyone to cut down an oak tree. was marked dead. Why? This seems like it adds something to the conversation, no?

californiaguy3 17y ago

In the city of Thousand Oaks, CA it's illegal to cut down oak trees, even on your own property. I believe the burden of proof is on the owner to demonstrate that property is being threatened by root growth, etc. I'm sure many other municipalities in CA have similar laws, because the oak trees that cover much of the chaparral land from just north of Los Angeles all the way up to the redwood forests are one of the most important physical features that tie together the northern and southern ends of California.

BRadmin 17y ago

From Palo Alto Online - California Avenue trees get the axe: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=13827 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=13827

hedgehog 17y ago

I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holly Oaks and many of them are diseased and in poor condition. Their branches cover street lights and grow over building storefronts and roofs requiring frequent tree trimming. They bear and drop large acorn fruits that are tripping hazards for pedestrians. "The Holly Oaks will be replaced with Red Maples ... smaller seed fruits that are safer for pedestrians ... metal grates will be installed ... which will bring a uniform look to the business district. The existing tree wells in sidewalks are open wells which may be tripping hazards." Funny thing is there are maples on 15th Ave so I've seen how they are through the year. When the maples start dropping sap on people's cars and all of the restaurants' outdoor furniture is too sticky to sit on I don't know what they'll do. I'll just laugh.

unwind 17y ago
Heh ... I'm certainly not into "US-bashing", but I can't help think that someone could do quite a lot of that fueled by that particular quote. The City of P.A. thinks it needs to protect its residents from the tripping hazards of ... acorns? Hilarious. :)
- pyre 17y ago
  Sounds like the people on the beautification project had a lot of inbreeding of ideas. Crap like that just seems a way to justify a decision. I mean how many people actually tripped on those tree wells or on acorns on the ground? How much money is it costing to tear down those old trees and replace them with new ones? This is just a small number of people trying to force their idea of what will look good onto the larger community. Bringing in things like 'tripping hazard' and 'the seeds are more pedestrian friendly' are just way to try and justify their actions/views against people that are outside of their group. It sounds good and all about wanting the trees to be a uniform height, but I suspect that decision was made partially because they expected there to be public outcry. They just wanted to tear down the trees without giving people a chance to rally against the action. Now people are stuck with the decision whether they like it or not.

n8agrin 17y ago

They may have suffered from Sudden Oak Death. My limited understanding is that because the disease spreads erratically they prefer to remove infected trees in order to prevent others from becoming infected, and to prevent damage being caused from the dead, weakened tree. Edit: It appears there is no known cure, only preemptive measures. http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/ http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/

pg 17y ago
At first I thought it might be some kind of serious disease. Why else would they do such a crazy thing? But all the other arguments the city listed, e.g. "Their branches cover street lights and grow over building storefronts and roofs requiring frequent tree trimming. They bear and drop large acorn fruits that are tripping hazards for pedestrians." make it clear this wasn't the case. If they were infected by some tree plague, it would have been enough to say just that.
- pyre 17y ago
  Sounds more like the business owners didn't like the trees and wanted to get rid of them. All other reasons are probably just there to justify it in a way that doesn't make them look like the 'bad guys.'
dfranke 17y ago
There seems to be a high incidence of Sudden Oak Death in areas populated by aesthetically-impaired bureaucrats. I recommend a study to determine whether they constitute a potential vector for the spread of the disease, and if so, preemptively eradicating them.
car 17y ago
That was my first thought too. Here a PBS QUEST feature about sudden oak death in California: http://www.kqed.org/quest/radio/sudden-oak-death http://www.kqed.org/quest/radio/sudden-oak-death

rglovejoy 17y ago

Something I don't understand: cities and counties in California are said to be broke, so how is it that the Palo Alto public works department is able to send out a work crew to cut down these oak trees? Is Palo Alto running a surplus that they need to spend before its fiscal year is over?

jfarmer 17y ago
They've been doing road work up and down College Ave all year, too, so presumably they have money for something.

supahfly_remix 17y ago

It might be sacrilegious to ask, but what does this have to do with hacking (other than say, hacking down of oak trees). The fact that it's ranked so highly just goes to show the amount of ass kissing going on here.

TriinT 17y ago
It's a herd phenomenon. Even if PG writes something utterly pointless, he gets upvoted to the stratosphere. It would be nice if this changed. Intelligent and successful people like PG don't need this kind of adulation.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think this comment shows a slight lack of... something... hmm... This is a bit disorganized, but I'll try to lay out how the gears are turning in my head: When you implicitly call out a community or someone very admired in that community (whose also running things for free for a lot of people's enjoyment), it's courageous but it burns some of your future ability-to-speak-out-and-others-will-listen-edness. If you were to make similar comments frequently, eventually people would just shrug it off instead of burning the mental energy to apply difficult critical thinking. Now, I was one of those disagreeable kids who used to argue with teachers when they got their math or chemistry wrong, and eventually I stopped doing that and started thinking: "Do I want to burn some of my speak-out-and-people-will-listen-edness on this particular topic?" Because you only have so much, and you might want to use it on something important later. Does the tree submission get submitted and voted if it's not Paul Graham or another very admired poster? Probably not. But it's a minor thing to take a banner up against, and it just oh-so-slightly decreases the resources you have by taking up that banner. And maybe it minorly gets on the nerves of a few people, and they don't like it, and so you get oh-so-very-slightly less attention/goodwill in the future. Or maybe not. Just something to ponder.
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    Interesting post, but since a lot of people here seem to make a big deal about their objectivity, I can see why this would annoy TriinT enough that he'd post about it. As you imply, he might've thought about it and decided it was worth risking some of that goodwill.

ecq 17y ago

absolutely terrible.

hristov 17y ago

Yeah this is really bad. First of all too many people have the silly idea that you can move trees around as if they are pieces of furniture or large heavy pieces of sculpture. "Oh lets get rid of these trees and put in different ones. Won't this be grand!" Moving trees is always tricky and not assured of success. When they get those new maple trees in california ave, I am sure that at least a couple of them will die and then they won't have equal height trees. As far as the trees being diseased, all city trees are unhealthy in one way or another. That is because their leaves absorb all kinds of exhaust byproducts, most of their roots are below concrete where they cannot get water or nutrients, and a hundred other reasons. Cities are just not healthy places for trees. But that does not mean that we should not have trees in cities. Trees make us feel better, clear up the air for us and make us happier in general. What if a tree is not healthy -- it is not actually suffering and cannot pass the disease to humans. As long as it looks good and it is green, it is serving its purpose. I guarantee you that the new maples they put in will become diseased pretty soon. So, good idea to call attention to this Paul, but someone should have thought of it earlier.

pyre 17y ago
Maybe someone should track these people down in a few years when the new trees are installed. Tell them that the new trees are diseased and need to be completely replaced a second time. Then ask them what their opinion is. If their opinion is, "There's nothing wrong with those trees." Then you know that the axed the oaks just because they preferred maples... no other reason.

dfranke 17y ago

I can't recall the details any more, but I'm reminded that there's a historic cemetery in Boston, where several of America's founders are buried, where the tombstones have all been moved from their original locations. Someone during the Victorian period decided they'd look nicer if they were all arranged in nice straight rows. Nobody recorded their original positions, so the locations of the remains are now unknown. So, cutting the trees isn't necessarily a case of corruption. It's at least as likely that CAADA is run by people whose taste really is that poor.

pyre 17y ago
The point is that such a drastic action (e.g. cutting down ALL the trees on a frequented, busy downtown area) should be voted on by the citizens/tax-payers. In this case, a relatively small number of people instituted a drastic change without consulting 99% of the people that it would affect. Not only that, but it is an IRREVERSIBLE change. If they had decided to repave the sidewalks or repaint the lampposts, it would be a different story. Had it been a single tree or only a couple of trees (that weren't prominently display -- e.g. signifying the center of town or something) it might be excusable. But to tear down that many trees without any sort of public input on the matter other than 'the public tasked us with beautifying the city' is irresponsible at best and malicious at worse.

thaumaturgy 17y ago

This will have adverse effects on the speed and traffic on that street, too. I've attended a couple of local community seminars on city planning, and studies cited there have found that tree-lined streets tend to cause drivers to drive slower and more cautiously. [1] [1]: For example: http://www.naturewithin.info/Roadside/Tree&Driver_ITE.pdf http://www.naturewithin.info/Roadside/Tree&Driver_ITE.pd...

asdlfj2sd33 17y ago

Relevant: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dis...

sketerpot 17y ago
Very relevant. He says very eloquently everything that's wrong with American city planning, with pictures. He doesn't mince words, either.

revorad 17y ago

This reminds of the time they chopped down all the trees along Fergusson College Road in Pune. It was one of the most beautiful streets in the city with trees on both sides forming a canopy almost covering the entire street. The excuse then was creating more space for vehicles and improving traffic flow. The trees are gone; the traffic jams haven't. Very sad.

ardit33 17y ago

It is sad though, that Cal. Ave, is considered on the most nicer areas of Sillicon Valley. There is nothing really special in it that you can't find in any dinky town in the us, minus the charm that small towns have. Compare to any nice areas to Cambridge, or W. D.C. or NYC, or Boulder. With the money flowing in the area, that that's what they can achieve? At least during the gilded age, the rich folks built memorial things, that are part of this country's cultural heritage. Todays' rich, just build bigger pools or planes, and that's it. Tells you something about rich geeks being really introverted, and just want to keep on themselves.

natrius 17y ago
California Ave. is notably nice because that pattern of building is now illegal in most parts of the Bay Area and the United States as a whole. People like visiting walkable cities and the walkable enclaves of their own suburbs, but if someone actually proposes building something like that, people raise hell. "Mixed-use is not appropriate for this site," Palmer said. "It impinges on the little residential neighborhood that's been developed." http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=10807 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=1080... Read the descriptions of the projects and see how remarkably tiny they are. Then read the comments. It's quite sad.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  Reminds me of the parochial mindset that caused me to leave Connecticut: residents on tiny twisty roads in wealthy old towns that didn't want a yellow centerline or white edge markers painted on the road because it "would lose its character." Forget all the automotive deaths attributed to people coming around blind corners too close to the middle of the road. Forget drivers in the rain or fog who can't tell where the road ends and the ditch begins. "It spoils the character" of the roadway, and that's more important than safety. Idiots!
  - barrkel 17y ago
    Then ban cars. Seems like a simple solution to me. :)

abstractbill 17y ago

I used to think most American cities were ugly because nobody cared enough to make them beautiful. Reading this almost makes me think it's intentional. Very sad indeed.

philwelch 17y ago
American cities are designed around the automobile. The rare American city that's designed to be beautiful (Portland, for instance) is impossible to drive in, while cities that can be driven in are almost necessarily inhuman sprawl. You'd think that, as a trade-off, American cities would be usable for motorists. But traffic congestion is such a big problem that it's impossible to build a city to satisfy even that requirement.

jonursenbach 17y ago

Where were the tree sitters at?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

e40 17y ago

Are there any Maple trees that do not either drop sap or other liquids or large seed pods? We're all familiar with the mess the former makes of our cars and sidewalks. The latter, at least the ones from Sugar Maples, are a real pain in the ass, clogging storm drains and such.

jrwoodruff 17y ago

This might be unconnected, but having just read PG's piece on publishing, and being in the local news business, it seems as though there may have been meetings about this decision? Published in the local newspaper perhaps? At least, most developments and streetscaping projects around here don't go down with at least a (public) city council vote. I'm not sure what my point is... maybe just that I'm curious what the local media coverage of this is/was?

cpr 17y ago

Is the old Kirk's hamburger joint still there? Wonderful place. (This is dating me--haven't been back there for 20 years.)

nvoorhies 17y ago
There's no longer a Kirk's on California. The Palo Alto location moved over to Town & Country village a couple miles away. Kirk's has a few other locations in nearby towns too, though, so I suspect it was more because the California Ave. location was getting old and run down than financial troubles.

fjabre 17y ago

Plenty of Oak trees still here in Cambridge PG as I'm sure you recall. Just beautiful this time of year. =) I'd miss them if they were gone too.

eserorg 17y ago

Your tax dollars at work. It's no wonder that the State of California is bankrupt. While the state of California is piling on _billions_ of dollars in debt to pay for unionized wellfare programs, raising tax rates across the board on its citizens, cutting essential city and state services, closing state parks, issuing "IOU's" to people in-lieu of tax refunds, and seeing its general obligation bonds downgraded below "junk" status, it apparently is still OK to spend taxpayer money cutting down perfectly healthy trees to make sure that all of the trees on a street are the same height. This in a state that has more Honda Prius' per-capita than any other state in the union. Isn't being "green" wonderful? I'm sure there's an entire office of twinkie-munching government bureaucrats that could be fired to compensate the California tax-payer for this gross misappropriation of his hard-earned tax dollars.

EinhornIsFinkle 17y ago

@earthlink.net for the Mayor? Ouch! He probably has a Flowbee and a Zack Morris bag phone to boot.

pmorici 17y ago
I emailed the guy and got a response.

Methusala 17y ago

If governments have so much power that they can demolish well loved landmarks in the center of American entrepreneurship, imagine what they can do to a whole state or even country...wait a minute. What needs to happen to save the state and country is the exact opposite of this travesty-entrepreneurs should replace the real deadwood, government on every level. http://lewrockwell.com http://lewrockwell.com

spiralhead 17y ago

People should be pissed about this for a number of reasons. PG--I suggest putting their phone numbers up. Emails are too easy to ignore.

projectileboy 17y ago

Hmm... tell me again why I would want to live in Silicon Valley?

gcv 17y ago

Could the trees have been infected by Dutch Elm Disease? I've regrettably seen many old trees cut down from it, and you can't see much damage until it has progressed significantly. Granted, I've never seen it affect an entire street full of trees at once, so that seems suspicious...

barrkel 17y ago

A similar situation almost occurred in my home town of Galway, Ireland. The main square, Eyre square, has historically been shaded by trees - Wikipedia says early ash was planted in 1631 - but the council wanted to remove 80 of 105 of them, "because the landscape levels were to be altered". There was a lot of opposition, though, and eventually they backed down.

cdibona 17y ago

I drove by today on El Camino and I thought it looked naked. Now I know why. Freaky. That said, I had a diseased oak lose a limb , if it had hit someone , or my car, it would have really done some damage.

christofd 17y ago

I don't mind talking about trees. The bigger picture behind this concept is urban planning, which is a huge issue to be fixed in the U.S. (if you want sustainable development).