I live in the suburbs (I know it sucks, but that’s just my current family situation.) and lately I’ve been trying to get outside more for my mental and physical health. The problem is, the suburbs are kind of shit for this. Obviously there’s all the car-centric infrastructure which makes walking more difficult and dangerous, but there’s not much I could conceivably do about that in any reasonable amount of time. However, the other big issue I’ve found, especially as it’s gotten so hot this summer, is there are barely any trees, and thus barely any shade anywhere along the sidewalks. Even the local park doesn’t have much shade aside from a small area in the corner. So it’s really unpleasant to walk anywhere. I get super sweaty even taking a leisurely walk on most days of the summer.
So I was thinking that maybe I could lobby the town to plant more trees such that most of the sidewalks are at least partially shady. I know there are some barriers to this like the tree roots cracking sidewalks and probably some NIMBYs who only view nature as being ornamental, and of course this would cost money to do. So it wouldn’t be a trivial thing, but I don’t think it’s entirely outside the realm of possibility either.
What do you think are some strategies I could use to make this happen? What sort of things do I need to do or account for? Obviously it’s going to be different depending on the town, but if there is any kind of general idea of how to go about this I would appreciate hearing it.
Contact your neighbors on FB and Nextdoor. The more taxpayers you have on your side the better chance you have. One person shouting will be ignored. Fifty people at a city council meeting will get noticed.
Trees are expensive to maintain, in addition to cracking sidewalks and roads, they need water, the leaves need to be cleaned up, they need to be trimmed, and they pose a liability risk so need to be covered by insurance.
I’d like to push back a little on your second paragraph, as most of the listed things mentioned can be remediated with appropriate planning/actions. Of course every case is a different one, this always depends on the local context, but as a general rule:
If you plant native trees, that usually isn’t a big problem, as they have been adapting themselves to those conditions for thousands of years
You can always select appropriate trees species that don’t have such aggressive root system that tends to crack them
Once again, native trees are your best bet, in conjunction with water harvesting techniques, I don’t think it will be a problem. I always recommend Brand Lancaster and Andrew Millison work on this subject. See Harvesting Rain Water for more details
If you prefer video format:
“Free water was illegal… He changed that…” [19m15s]
YT link, non YT link
I always find this a weird obsession, why do we have to clean them up? In a forest, it usually lies on the floor and becomes nutrients, habitat, reduces water evaporation from the soil, protects the soil from erosion, etc
This one depends a lot on the context, but at least around here, trimming usually means butchering trees and making them completely unbalanced, which makes the population even more upset as your point below becomes the likely scenario
Healthy trees are not likely to cause problems. Again this one depends on how the city deals with it, but routine check ups should be more common
Considering all the benefits greenery has in our lives, I still think we come out way ahead with it in the long term, even if we were only looking at it from an economic perspective
This is a fantastic response!