Here's a better way for cities and towns to plant street trees. When they're given more space for their growing roots and trunks, they live longer, healthier lives and are more beneficial to our urban environment.
Too often, the trees are planted in very small sidewalk cutouts and are expected to grow as if they were in their preferred habitat. However, the urban environment is typically very stressful for street trees, and a small sidewalk square with compacted soil makes things much more difficult. Trees in small pits often struggle to spread their roots and therefore struggle to obtain much of the water, oxygen and nutrients that they need to survive.
Footage from this video was taken at the University of Pennsylvania, where new buildings have much more optimized spaces for tree to be planted along streets.
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As the owner of several fruit trees, I feel that cities are right to not plant them on city streets.
The fruit makes a huge mess and draws in pests and create slip hazards.
They require more maintenance than most non fruiting trees so they don’t grow too tall.
Things they drop have a weight that can harm people and property.
Food of a dubious source with unknown water supply could harm the public and leave the city liable, because you would have a hard time saying you didn’t know people would eat it.