The new neighbors are cutting down their big pine tree

[conuly]

This is an enormous pity, as that tree both keeps this house 10 degrees cooler in the summer and also blocks north winds in the winter.

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Comments

[jhetley]

Logging operation may be insurance-related. We've seen an amount of that around here, with large trees being considered a liability.

[conuly]

In this case, due to the placement, I know it really *is* a liability - a few more years and the ground around its little hillock would have eroded enough that it'd topple. But I'm still sad.

[agoodwinsmith]

I have spent a lot of my adult life quietly chanting "not my dirt, not my dirt". I hate it when trees go. I suspect it is as jhetley says: insurance, but I still hate it when trees go. The loss of passive cooling/wind protection is not small. And, especially with deciduous trees, the loss of the gentle sound of bazillions of leaves rubbing together is something, too. Masks less pleasant sounds, and is soothing in itself. Even a pine tree is going to have little birds farting around in it.

But: not my dirt.

[conuly]

I know. I just hate hate hate any and all change.

[agoodwinsmith]

This also is a valid reason.

[steorra]

From that public transportation article:

"By then, suburban areas [in Toronto] had a majority of the population within the new metro area, so they had a lot of clout. They demanded equal service to the prewar neighborhoods in the historic city limits, eventually along with a single flat fare for the entire city, thanks to provincial subsidy."

By contrast, when I was living in Columbus, Ohio, I heard of a suburb where there was popular *opposition* to expanding bus service (I can't remember the details, if it was increasing bus frequency or adding more stops or what). As far as I could tell, the opposition boiled down to "it'll bring poor people into our nice suburban neighbourhood".

[rebeccmeister]

Oh yes, the latter is a very common argument voiced in the good ol' US of A. (SIGH)

[brokenallbroken]

As far as I could tell, the opposition boiled down to "it'll bring poor people into our nice suburban neighbourhood".

Yyyyep. See also: Beverley Hills' decades long fight against the Purple Line Metro extension. The NIMBY is transit's perennial enemy. Well, and constantly running into fossil deposits, which, being as they're tunneling right past the La Brea tarpits I feel like they should have accounted for.

[conuly]

This is one area where I think "If we just went ahead and did it, not only would they get used to it but, in time, they'd be the biggest users!"

[steorra]

I've noticed the difference before between the Vancouver, Canada area where it's totally normal to see businessmen in suits riding the bus, and Columbus where it ... isn't.

Transit is bad -> mostly poor people use transit -> "transit is for poor people"

Transit is good -> all sorts of people use transit -> no assumption that transit is for poor people.

[brokenallbroken]

This is true. Probably because the poor have no choice, but businessmen in suits can afford to avoid the inconvenience if it gets to be too inconvenient.

[steorra]

Yup.

[brokenallbroken]

Probably. Once the city determined there was no seismic risk to tunneling under the high school, they basically told the NIMBYs to stuff it. "OMG teh poors!" is not a legitimate complaint around here, fortunately. (the housekeepers and nannies have to get around somehow)

[brokenallbroken]

Now they want to get the angry yam involved.

That right there is how you know it's about class and race

[steorra]

"The NIMBY is transit's perennial enemy."

It's interesting that that doesn't seem to have been a major factor in Toronto - that instead the suburbanites were clamouring for transit.

[topaz_eyes]

Losing trees is always a shame. Coniferous trees have shallow roots, so the very tall ones are not stable in the event of sudden wind bursts. Especially if they're planted in sandy or loose-packed soil.

Usually the trees will withstand gusts up to 90-100 km/hour (55-60 miles an hour, which we see on a semi-regular basis). But our city lost quite a few pine and spruce trees during the last few major wind storms.

[conuly]

Yeah, I do know that this tree was not so sturdily placed where it was. I get it. I just... I miss it!

[author_by_night]

The mother who wrote about her son is just... wow. I may actually write a longer entry about that. Beyond the politics on hand, people, stop speaking for your children. It's possible she didn't know he had very opposite views - I'm not sure if certain family members realize where I stand on certain issues. Either way, at least ask your kids if it's okay.

To be fair, she may not have realized it would go viral. Even so... plus, given the way she framed it, it certainly seems she wanted non-family/friends to see it.

(ETA: Sorry about the weird initial comment, I got interrupted JUST as I was typing and had to sign out.)

[conuly]

Seriously!

[smokingboot]

We need trees.

If they cut it down then replaced it, maybe I would be all right with it. Possibly. No, who am I kidding, I would be that baleful wild-eyed neighbour whom everyone wishes wouldn't turn up at community meetings.

The wind is roaring round the house this evening, and the trees are moving, everything rustling.

It makes me feel alive.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear; that sucks! Why are they cutting it down? Just because they can?

[conuly]

Nooooooo, probably for the actually reasonable reason that it was a little precariously perched on a little hillock and one year soon was going to topple onto somebody's roof.

[(Anonymous)]

I see. Alas, reasonable as it may be, it's still sad.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I see. Alas, reasonable as it may be, it's still sad.

[conuly]

Indeed.

(I related all this to my mother, and she replied that she'd hoped when it toppled, it'd topple on our roof so we could get their insurance to pay for repairs!)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Ehh, no; that could have been very bad. Years ago, up on Whidbey Island, a big fir tree fell on my parents' neighbors' house - I forget why they weren't sleeping upstairs that night, but they were damn lucky, because the branches of the tree when it fell stuck all the way through their bed, through the floor below, and through the downstairs ceiling - they'd have been skewered and/or crushed if they'd been up there.

I love the giant Douglas fir outside my own bedroom window. It looks healthy, but that's no guarantee of anything - at our own Merrie Greenwood Faire last month, a branch full of fresh green leaves fell and killed a lady (https://www.google.com/search?q=merrie+greenwood+tree+fell). The prevailing winds are such that if that tree does break, it'll likely crush our storage shed rather than the house, but one never knows.