the Original Green

Urban Forestry and Sustainable Cities - They need each other, but Steve Mouzon points to one aspect of a disturbing trend where bureaucratic posturing supersedes common sense.

On his Blog, 

the Original Green

Steve writes with common sense about the location of street trees, roads and sidewalks.  He uses a number of illustrations to point to the fallacy of the arguments that trees and pavement cannot mix unless the pavement is well beyond the dripline of the trees.

One more example to add to his list:

This is Wendover Road, in Charlotte, NC.  In the early 1970's the City of Charlotte, during a street widening project of Wendover Road, wanted to cut down all of the trees that you see adjacent to the curb - for the reasons the Urban Foresters cite and because of "safety" concerns.  This became fertile soil for protest (remember the times) by many local citizens, but especially high school students.  You can see by the photograph, that the protesters prevailed.  This in itself is amazing, given the times and the general outcome of these skirmishes.  To date safety has not been an issue - in fact I would submit that the proximity of the trees to the street actually slows traffic.  And the trees are still alive.  Charlotte bills itself as the city of trees, and over the years has in fact become that - at least in certain areas.