HN

Comments (99)

• sudosteph
  A few years ago, I spent a summer renting a 1 bedroom new build apartment in the south part of Seattle. The only outside light or fresh air came from a sliding door that overlooked an interior parking garage. It always smelled like fumes. Couldn't even see the sky from most angles. I was convinced after that that living conditions without access to fresh air and nature are probably one of the more potent causes of neuroticism in city-dwellers. Lack of AC didn't help either when it was hitting the 90s at multiple points that summer.This is probably the one area that most cities in North Carolina excel at. We don't have great sidewalks or transit, but we have a ton a trees. Less than we used to though. But from my current apartment, I'm closer to seeing 300 trees than 3. The post-hurricane-Hugo effort to buy out houses in flood prone zones and turn them into greenways was probably the single smartest thing Charlotte and the surrounding towns have done (though I'm glad we got our light rail too - too bad for Raleigh). It's a good pattern - protects the natural watershed, gives wildlife a safe place to live, makes flooding less impactful, and creates pleasant away-from-road paths for walking and biking.
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  xondono
  I think these simplifications end up hurting more than helping.30% tree cover looks very different depending on the trees your municipality chooses.For example, Barcelona covers everything with a variety of Platanus, which is easier to keep than other trees, but it’s quite dirty and produces A LOT of pollen. For me, that I’m allergic to it, it just makes the city unavailable for 2-4 weeks every year.Having smaller plants, with more variety also feels much better than just sprinkling the right amount of massive trees with equal spacing. I’m pretty convinced part of the “we need more green” feeling people get is actually “I need something in my environment to not look like a grid”.
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  lmf4lol
  One thing that I really really like about living in Amsterdam, is that we have trees and plants everwhere. Also, for 2 years now, city stopped cutting most of the plant growth in parks and on the side of roads. Its so beautiful green and colourful now and insects are having a great time. I counted this year already 6 different sorts of humblebees in my garden.
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  luuundonjk
  I was walking in central London and something felt wrong. I couldn't quite tell what though, but I had this constant feeling of unease.It took me a few days to understand - there are no trees in central London (the City).Sure, you have a small/big park here and there, but no random trees on side walks. It's literally a (beautiful) concrete/glass wasteland.Note: I only walked a few of the main streets, I'm sure I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's quite noticeable compared with other cities after you realize it. And there are random trees in other areas, outside City of London.
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  ccppurcell
  Tree cover is great but I wish cities would just consider shade a bit more. As the world heats up, it's insane that so many places humans need to be for extended amounts of time have enough shade for a handful of people at best and often nothing. I'm thinking long sidewalks, waiting areas, playgrounds.
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  uberex
  No because I planted a tree very close to the window, blocking view of other trees.
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  spacedcowboy
  Hah, looking out my window, I can see about 300 trees, and it’d be more if it weren’t for all the trees in the way. The house is next to a park that’s designed for walking in, with lots of twisty pathways between trees and bushes to give you the feeling that you’re not in a manufactured space.
• projektfu
  I wonder why they didn't mention Atlanta, which probably meets the criteria except perhaps some parts are a little more than 300m from a park. The canopy here is about 47%.
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  rendaw
  Some photos would be really awesome. What does a view in an area that passes the test look like compared to one that doesn't? 3 trees doesn't sound like a lot, I don't have a good mental concept of this.
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  helloplanets
  Esbo / Espoo is an odd one out, of those four. The three others look like the olden European cities you'd expect, but you'll have a hard time getting around in Espoo without a car. There are plenty of beautiful neighborhoods in Espoo, but it's basically a large spread of separate suburbs rather than a city in the way the rest are. The actual "Espoo Center" is not very green and flowery either, and it's not really thought of as an actual city center.
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  paulmooreparks
  Singapore here, checking all the boxes. 200m from a neighborhood park with many trees, and ~700m from a GARGANTUAN park, Jurong Lake Gardens, over 4 km in length with many times that in pathways through gardens and around a lake.
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  qrios
  Thanks for sharing! I had no idea about the “3-30-300 test,” even though I always pay attention to city trees.I can, however, easily explain the division in Europe: In Italy (for example, in Palermo), the vigorous growth of many species very often leads to significant damage to infrastructure.Here in Vienna, there’s a directory of trees[1] where you can see, among other things, the species and age.[1] https://baumkarte.at/
• anon
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• ImaCake
  That first map seems to map quite closely to koppen climate zones across the continent. Its hard to say whether the climate is decisive here because climate is a big influencer of urban design. However, its interesting that in Australia its the two Mediterranean climate cities (Perth and Adelaide) which frequently get labelled as worse for tree cover compared to the sub tropical east coast cities.
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  mcdonje
  I read Don Quixote and thought it might be fun to visit some parts of Spain mentioned in the books. Then after looking at some maps and seeing a stark lack of trees, I decided I wouldn't enjoy the trip.
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  bob1029
  I like to use wildlife as a proxy for the quality of a location. If you can see things like rabbits and squirrels on a regular basis, you are probably doing reasonably ok. I have to put up fences and other barriers or the deer will eat everything in my yard.I've seen suburban development that would easily satisfy the three tree test from any window on any property, but they still come off as desolate wastes. The age of the trees seems to be a non trivial factor.
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  few
  I learned from geoguessr pro, Rainbolt, that every tree and its species is mapped for NYC: https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org/tree-mapNow I am curious if there is a dataset for the location of every tree in every city in the world? https://overpass-turbo.eu?
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  TimByte
  What struck me is that the "three trees from your window" part sounds almost trivial until you actually test it
• nsb1
  There! Are! Three! Trees!-- Picard
• RajX_dev
  currently where i am right now its like i am living in a forest , yeah but when i was living in the city it feels like that trees dont exist anymore
• tetromino_
  The "3 trees out of a window" sounds like an idiotic criterion because it ignores the elevation factor. In the exact same building, it's very likely you will see a couple dozen trees from a 10th floor window, and only one from a ground floor window. But which situation actually puts you closer to the flora?
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  mapontosevenths
  ‘Beneath the pavement, the beach!’
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  BenFranklin100
  American zoning forbids taller ~6 story residential building and trades open green space parks for shorter, 1-2 story buildings. The lower density means people are further away from the few parks that do exist too.
• 3rdworldhuman
  Montevideo, Uruguay here. I can see 3, 300, and 3.000 for sure. Not sure if 30.000. May well be.
• Abimelex
  > People who can see at least three trees from their window have better mental health than those who can't. It seems like the easiest of the three goals to achieveHere we go, correlation does not equal causation. Simple as that. Planting 3 trees will not give you a better mental health nor will planting 10 trees. But moving in to an environment where many trees grow in front of your window will probably change a lot more than just putting trees in your view.
• jongjong
  I'm in Australia and I have view on a mountain so I see too many trees to count. Proximity to a forest was top priority for me and my wife.Having lived in Europe for many years before, this is something that's most striking about Australia. I live in a state with one of the highest population densities and yet it still feels very sparsely populated relatively speaking.
• taffydavid
  I'm happy to report I can see much more than 3 out every window.
• tamimio
  Well, I live up high in a penthouse with an amazing river view and hundreds of maple trees that also change colors throughout the seasons. I wish I could share it but I am certain some of you might geolocate it.Edit: for canada map since the article ignores the country entirely, check https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/country/CAN/
• jonplackett
  Am I the only one that stared at the photo at the top for 3 minutes trying to see three trees in the photo because I thought it was a post about optical illusions? No, oh ok.
• traceroute66
  > I only walked a few of the main streetsPerson walks along main roads in London and complains they see no trees. Meanwhile in other news .... :)London is one of the most tree-ridden cities on this earth, so I dread to think what "main streets" you were walking along.
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  ErroneousBosh
  No data for NW Scotland, presumably because 140mph winds for four weeks of the year (in the local language we call that "January") is incompatible with large trees.
• anon
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• psychoslave
  Looks great, are they interactive maps showing these data?
• ReyX
  ONE
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  greatgib
  Totally random numbers picked up to be a catching name for trying to get celebrity.Could have been 200 meters or 500 meters or 4 trees or 2 or flowers.This is the kind of ideology that is ruining public policies instead of being grounded on concrete and scientific facts and goals.
• m-schuetz
  The map does not look plausible to me. I live in Vienna and spent quite a bit of time in the Netherlands. There is absolutely no way that Vienna scores better than Dutch cities when it comes to the question "Can you see three trees when you look out the window?".Vienna cheekily cheats statistics by counting several adjacent forests as "urban green spaces" within city borders. The roads within the city, however, are mostly barren concrete deserts.