Additionally: 99% of the time they specifically plant non-fruiting trees.
Let communities grow their own food!
My city had a problem in a street near me where they planted the wrong type because the roots of the trees were popping up everywhere. They absolutely destroyed the sidewalk and every bit of concrete around them, as well as falling over during strong winds, to the point that one tree destroyed someone’s roof. Eventually the city cut down every last one tree along the entire street, and planted new ones.
People need to be careful with trees, they’re not a flower in a pot that in the worst case dies and you buy a new one. Besides the damage that was inflicted, the street looks terrible now with almost no shade and small trees that will take decades to grow to the point where the old ones were.
I’m thinking if it would be better to make sidewalks as boardwalks offset from the ground just a foot or so. Obviously in places where it’s possible, which is far from everywhere.
It’s hardly surprising that the roots will break through concrete or tiled pavements, so the question is really why we prioritise the concrete over the tree. Maintaining a boardwalk does seem more expensive at a first glance, but a concrete sidewalk isn’t maintenance free either. It just appears to be for a while, but eventually the trees and other plants will break through and frost will cause it to break it down too. A concrete sidewalk still only lasts 10-20 years in good conditions, and even shorter in places with frost or trees etc. I’ve seen perfectly fine concrete break down in less than 5 years.
Anyway, my point is that I believe it would make perfect sense to use other materials for sidewalks. Materials that would be better to coexist with plants and trees or be easier to modify to tree trunks and whatnot…
Overall I think proper sidewalks design is generally a completely underappreciated discipline. I miss the desirepath subreddit. There are soo many things that could easily be done better.
Oh I agree, any plant is pretty much an afterthought in a lot of cities, while they should be an integral part. The situation in my city is actually a perfect example of that: they put absolutely no thought into what kind of tree they’re planting, how deep and where. They’re practically an “addition” to a street.
Trees are especially important for blazing summer days when they provide shade. Walking down that treeless street is hell.
But it wasn’t a sidewalk issue, the roots were like 20cm above the ground that was on the same level as the entrances to houses (the city is completely flat). And that’s a huge difference, infrastructure can be fixed in a couple of months, trees need decades to grow, which is why we need to be careful when selecting and planting. But alas, that’s not guaranteed at all as long as we view them as “a thing you plonk on a street and call it a day”.
Paving stones/cobbles seem to work much better than concrete and asphalt. They are very durable (stone), can be put down in different patterns, and if you need to do maintenance on underground stuff you can just rip them up and then replace the same stones when you’re done. They also appear to be more frost stable.
Overall I think proper sidewalks design is generally a completely underappreciated discipline.
Sidewalks will always be a mere afterthought if the people designing the streets drive their car everywhere.
I miss the desirepath subreddit.
Same here. My city recently cut all the trees from a main road and it’s so much worse now. There’s basically no shade.
As the owner of several fruit trees, I feel that cities are right to not plant them on city streets.
The fruit makes a huge mess and draws in pests and create slip hazards.
They require more maintenance than most non fruiting trees so they don’t grow too tall.
Things they drop have a weight that can harm people and property.
Food of a dubious source with unknown water supply could harm the public and leave the city liable, because you would have a hard time saying you didn’t know people would eat it.
Those fruits might accidentally feed someone poor, cant have that
Near my place, there’s a very narrow sidewalk that is obstructed by trees’ root and trunks; That way, pedestrian were forced to walk on the road beside the sidewalk. Just brilliant.
The one on the video looks absolutely gorgeous by comparison.
Trees are almost always planted too deeply and are males when dioecious species are used. It’s probably why seasonal allergies have gotten a lot worse in recent decades as most ornamentals are just shedding shitloads of pollen.
