2 August 03

The Aging Of Neighborhoods

This is a post on trees for the biweekly discussions of the Ecotone wiki.

macehouse.jpgIf one looks at satellite imagery of Davis, two neighborhoods show up as being heavily wooded, the College Park area north of campus, and a tract north of Montgomery Street in South Davis. Both are quite desirable and expensive places to live, owing in part to the large trees there. Though there are a few valley oaks amongst the trees, most of these trees are not native to the site, and were planted when the tracts were laid out.

The time it takes trees to mature exceeds the planning horizons of most developers and city workers by a good bit. When I travel through new developments like Mace Ranch shown above, a place with a very low tree canopy to rooftop area ratio, a place where the garages dominate the houses which dominate their lots, I wonder if it will ever appear as forested as College Park. Somehow I doubt it.

Posted by at 09:16 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. Why, it looks as if those homeowners have a veritable forest…THREE trees…of a species not expected to gain much girth, apparently, planted so close to the house.

    Can you point me to a site that allows public use of satellite imagery (I know about terraServer) and would work with a dialup connection?

    — fredf    3. August 2003, 01:27    Link
  2. my son says that those new areas in davis have no personality. no trees, all houses look the same…. i agree! :-)

    — Fernanda    3. August 2003, 07:04    Link

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