All Read. Please.Forest Idea of Future.

If you read the fine print in many city plans you will see new development required to maintain X amount of the area as open or greenbelts. This is not strictly for aesthetic purposes. It also serves a hydrologic purpose. Water runs off concrete and asphalt. Water soaks into open space and lawns. The greenbelts serve as safety valve outlets for rainstorms. Otherwise all the rainfall would end up as storm drain runoff and overwhelm even the best designed flood control system. In some cities this also helps recharge the water table.

Urban planners will use aerial photographs like the one above to analyze if they have enough permeable surface. They will add up how much of a neighborhood is roofs and concrete and how much is lawns and flowerbeds (OK, computer software analyzes digital imagery, but you get the point).

As much as I am for this there are several problems. First off the roots will destroy your water lines, sewer lines, driveway etc. Then you have to worry about the kind of tree you plant. For instance a silver maple, will grow very large and very fast. This can be a problem after a while from limbs falling and destroying your property, house etc. Then you run into the liabilty laws. If your tree destroys something of you neighbors, etc.

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Be Cool
K_OS

Originally posted by Skibum

I've read somewhere that the U.S. is more heavily wooded now than it was 100 years ago. Not sure how true that is , but I do know that where I live 140 years ago there weren't many trees in the area after 100,000 union troops spent several months camped out during the civil war, it was quite bare.

Yep.

The U.S. is currently about 34% covered by forests, compared to ~45% prior to 1640. We have about the same now as 1900 and more than the nadir year of 1970. Of the growth since 1970, about 80% is natural expansion. The rest is artificial reforestation of old farms and fields. The amount of forest cover in the U.S. is still expanding, although the rate of growth is slowing as urbanization is increasing.

The U.S. still has a few environmental problems, but deforestation is not among them. Quite the opposite, American forests are overstocked to the point of unhealthy. The consensus view of every science based natural resource organization is we need to sharply increase harvest levels of American forests.

I live in a city with several trees and outside the city many would think it was a national forest in all directions. I've even seen deer inside the city limits and had one almost run into my car on the way to work one morning. Fortunately, it missed me. Many people haven't been so lucky.

When you bring the forest to you or live near a forest, you may have more animals than you can stand. It can be hazardous to drive around at night because deer will cross the road without looking and are often found grazing right beside the road.

Overall, I believe my area already has enough trees but I would like it if my neighbor planted a fast growing maple in their yard. It would shade my house in the evening. That's one problem you have when your yard is so small that your driveway and house is on the edge of the property line.

I once lived in an area where our yard was much bigger. We left one area with several trees like a little section of woods. We also had many other areas not as densely wooded that we just left shady so we would not have as much grass to cut. Having a big yard and being able to cut down on grass cutting time works good. I'm not interested in wooded areas that are so thick you can't even walk through it but I know of several areas like that.