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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Sidewalks will always be a mere afterthought if the people designing the streets drive their car everywhere.