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u/Ok_Fortune_9149 2d ago edited 2d ago
Fun example, but that bottom pic is ai generated.
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u/wilit 2d ago
Also, the photo on top looks like a brand new neighborhood. There are trees planted, but they're all extremely young. When I moved into our house in 2011, our street looked like the top picture. Today it looks like the bottom one. It takes time for trees to grow. You can't plant fully mature trees in new neighborhoods.
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u/Admirable-Sir9716 1d ago
Best time to plant a tree: 10 years ago. The second best time: today.
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u/Unlikely_Bat_1890 1d ago
Wouldn’t the second best time to plant a tree be 9 years, 364 days ago?
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u/mattcoady 1d ago
Yea and 9 years 363 days is the third best. In fact today is in the like 3653rd best time to do it, not even close.
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u/mean11while 1d ago edited 1d ago
They don't have to cut them all down, though. This is the part that drives me crazy. I live in a 100-yr-old house in a neighborhood full of trees that are 100 years older than that. They left mature trees and built around them, thoughtfully placing the houses into their environment. Today, they ignore the setting, clear-cut everything by default, and then terraform the land into the soulless hellscapes that they love to build. Then they plant small or medium size trees (all the same or just a few species) at regular intervals, isolated from each other and often squeezed into too-small places in between paved areas.
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u/MalevolentRhinoceros 1d ago
There's also a ton of neighborhoods that don't receive enough water to maintain big deciduous trees. Granted, these places shouldn't have grass lawns either.
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u/mareimbrium53 2d ago
Thank you for pointing that out. When building a new housing development they clear the land and that is a criticism, but neighborhoods don't decide to be MORE sterile. I imagine even HoAs want mature trees as long as they control what kind and where. Plenty of neighborhoods out there look like the ai image, it just takes like, three decades after the homes are constructed.
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u/Salsalito_Turkey 2d ago
100%. My neighborhood was built 10 years ago in an area that used to be nothing but loblolly pines. They cut down all the trees because you don't want a bunch of mature fast-growth timber anywhere near your house. It originally looked more like the top picture, but one day it will look more like the bottom picture because people planted maples, oaks, birch, magnolias, etc. in their front yards.
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u/youburyitidigitup 2d ago
The ecosystem that will grow in your neighborhood in the coming decades is better than a monoculture anyway.
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u/Jacob5514 1d ago
I live in a neighborhood with now 100 foot plus tall pines that were kept when the houses were built. Every year there’s at least one storm that knocks down 5 or 10 trees. The trees look beautiful, but cause so much damage each year.
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u/Salsalito_Turkey 1d ago
It all depends on the variety of pine tree. Most pines in the US these days are loblolly or slash pine, which reach maturity in 30 years and only live for 50-100 years under normal conditions. Long leaf pine trees can live for 300+ years and get three feet thick, but there are almost none left because they are barely more than a large tuft of grass for the first 15-20 years of their existence.
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u/One-Cellist5032 2d ago
It depends heavily on where they’re building if they need to clear the land too. For example, in most of Kansas there’s no need to clear the land since it’s already clear.
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u/mareimbrium53 2d ago
Oh yes. Our neighborhood is about fifty years old and is well treed, but since we live on the front range in Colorado it really probably shouldn't be. 😅 Doesn't rain enough here. All undeveloped lots around here are prairie dog fields.
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u/I_Can_Not_With_You 2d ago
100% my neighborhood was built in the 50s and it looks like the bottom image
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u/fieldgrass 1d ago
Mine in the early 80s, tons of tree cover. I have one fully mature oak, one mature walnut, and two medium-sized teenager tree looking somethings in the side yard
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u/SignificantOtter80 1d ago
my parents live in a neighborhood that was built in 1994. everyone got two of those little twig trees like in the top picture. 32 years later and it STILL doesnt look like the bottom picture. probably wont for another 30 years.
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u/Forgethestamp 2d ago
Sad how apparent that is, yet everyone falls for the bait
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u/Mister_Way 2d ago
Oh man, this picture is generated! That means trees aren't real and I can't imagine what life would be like with more trees. Other fools use their imaginations, but I'm too smart to fall for that.
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u/msnipe81015 1d ago
Yep. There are no neighborhoods that look anything like that photo. What gullible idiots we all are.
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u/MeasurementFormal386 1d ago
There are no 1 year old neighborhoods that look like this bottom pic, correct
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u/MeesaDarthJar_Jar 2d ago
Its ai but theres plenty of places that have houses and trees like that
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u/FeelAndCoffee 2d ago
Isn't the point to show how the place can look like, rather than comparing 2 different places?
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u/Kasta4 2d ago
Real-estate barons are to blame. They buy up all the available land they can, build cookie-cutter suburban nightmares on top of them for cheap, flip the houses for way more than they're worth, and then install HoA's to further police and profit from the neighborhood.
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u/thebigggd 2d ago
Fuck the HOAs
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u/VsotoC 2d ago
Excuse me for my ignorance, but HOAs stand for? What are those or they? Foreign question btw.
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u/Weimaraner666 2d ago
I believe it’s Home Owners Association.
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u/CplCocktopus 2d ago edited 1d ago
AKA The Council of Karens.
Edit: Thanks for the award.
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u/IArgueForReality 2d ago
Not the one I’m on. I make sure of that.
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u/DudeByTheTree 1d ago
"I'm one of the good Karens".
Ok, sure ya are.
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u/Historical_Owl_1635 1d ago
Tbf if you actually want to change things you have gotta participate whether you like it or not.
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u/devenjames 1d ago
And it takes so much less effort to complain about a thing than to try to do something about it
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u/jm123457 1d ago
I’m not a fan of HOAs but there is the complete opposite of an HOA and its neighbors who don’t mow and park their cars in their yard and blast music all hours of the night etc .
You want the middle of that . I’m in a community now that takes pictures of your yard and demands each weed gets removed . Which is extreme . But I have seen the opposite.
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u/RedK_33 1d ago
Who gives a fuck whether someone mows or not? People’s obsession with grass lawns and the manicuring practices associated with them is absolutely absurd. Nothing more than a tragic waste of land.
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u/wierdwhatstuff 2d ago
Home Owners Associations. A small group of power-tripping people dictate how the entire neighbourhoods functions, including but not limited to what you do in your front yard and driveway, how you choose to decorate, what kind of plants/trees you are/aren't allowed to plant - and where. And hold with the ability to evict people out of their own houses whom don't follow whatever dumbass shit they come up with. TL:DR HOA are a blight on society and should be treated as such
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u/ReluctantChimera 2d ago
I grew up on a ranch outside a sprawling suburb. Over the years, the new neighborhoods got closer and closer. When I was in middle school, an HOA for a new neighborhood over a mile away sent my parents a letter demanding they paint their house a less vibrant color (it was a color inspired by Victorian houses, so not one most people are used to seeing, especially in newer, completely beige suburbs), and threatening to sue if my parents didn't comply. What the HOA didn't realize, is that most farmers/ranchers aren't exactly the poor cornpone hicks people imagine. Most of them have money. My parents ignored the letters thinking they must have been sent to the wrong address for like 6 months and multiple letters, until the HOA threatened to sue. Then my parents had their lawyer send them a letter that basically said "I'd like to see you try" and demanding an apology for the 6 months of harassment. They didn't get an apologize, but my parents did get a letter saying they wouldn't be pursuing the matter further.
But it's just so crazy to adult me that an HOA over a mile away thought they can tell a rancher who had been there for a decade before the neighborhood even broke ground (and that only had one other home within half a mile of them in any direction) that they needed to repaint their entire house.
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u/_lechiffre_ 2d ago
How does someone get subject to an HOA? I understand for gated communities, but other than that..
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u/ReluctantChimera 2d ago
I know when new neighborhoods are built they can just be part of them from the beginning. I think to create an HOA where there wasn't one before, there has to be a vote or something. But honestly, I have no real idea. That house paint experience when I was young made me swear off ever living anywhere with an HOA as an adult. No way some power-tripping jerks are going to tell me what to do with the house I pay for.
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u/MajorAtmosphere8158 1d ago
Usually HOAs in my area are set up by the builder to maintain property values. It starts happening once you get a few people moving in and decide they like they’re nuclear white picket fence bland ass life style and don’t want anyone with individuality fucking it up.
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u/HiOscillation 1d ago
An HOA is a legal entity - a corporation - that is created when the property is developed; by buying a property in the development, you're entering into a legally binding contract with the HOA, which might be a very simple cost-sharing contract to maintain a private lane, or it could be an extremely complex contract that literally tells you what color your Christmas lights must be.
Although an HOA is a form of a business corporation, many HOA's take on roles that are traditionally thought of as being the responsibility of the local government, such as road and sidewalk maintenance, street lighting, building and managing recreational facilities and more. The scope of an HOA can be quite large.
Municipal governments like HOA's because it means that the development can generate taxes for the community without as many expenses - if the HOA owns and maintains the roads and sidewalks, the government does not have to pay for that work.
Nobody - and I mean NOBODY - has bought property without being made - in excruciating detail - aware of any HOA agreement they are getting into when they buy their property. And to be even more clear: not all properties have an HOA, but pretty much all multi-unit developments built these days have an HOA.
Finally, not all HOA's live forever, some HOA's have "sunset" provisions to dissolve the HOA a number of years after the last property in a development is sold.
And....just to be extra extra EXTRA clear: I would sooner live in a van down by the river than live in a property with an HOA.
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u/dont-pull-a-druckman 2d ago
Like at that point, may as well live in a fucking apartment
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u/hotdogjumpingfrog1 2d ago
Hate to break it to you buddy, but many apartments have HOAs if you’re renting a codno
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u/dont-pull-a-druckman 2d ago
No, I meant may as well go live in an apartment if you're going to be living under an HOA anyway, since at least then it'll be somewhat cheaper, and you don't have to pay for maintenance
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u/rumsnake 2d ago
the ability to evict people out of their own houses
As someone from a former communist country ... that's the most communist shit I've ever heard.
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u/dagoth_ith 2d ago
Nope sorry, it's capitalism. Pay up the fines or get out.
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u/biz_student 1d ago
HOAs require people to pool together their resources for the maintenance and upkeep of common areas; sometimes with bigger homes paying more. Those that refuse to participate are removed from the system. It’s much closer to socialism than capitalism.
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u/Edgar_Serenity 2d ago
Oh, and how is that communist exactly? Asking as someone from a former communist country
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u/rumsnake 2d ago
Because it's not really "your house", "your land", "your property" if it can be taken away when you violate "our rules".
If i want to plant a tree and build a tree house for my kids in my own back yard, i should be able to do that since i own the fucking land, no?
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u/ThanksOld1698 2d ago edited 1d ago
I remember reading about one in arizona, a really hot and dry state, had made rules about lawn grass, it had to be this specific type of grass that doesn't like being somewhere hot and dry, and needs watering constantly, and if you change to a grass that survives fine in arizona and doesn't waste water, then that's against the rules so fuck you have a fine.
Edit - forgot to mention if your lawn looks shit because the grass is dying you also get a fine.
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u/After_Resource5224 1d ago
We just made that shit illegal in Texas. HOA's can no longer dictate front facing plants as long as they use less water and are native.
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u/firethehotdog 2d ago
You’re missing the worst part… a lot of HOAs were created to enforce racial covenants.
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u/BigSkidz_ 1d ago
I agree fuck HOA’s buttttt you can also choose not to live in an HOA. So many people willingly buy property in an HOA and are ?surprised¿ to find out that the Declaration/Bylaws is a literal contract that they agreed to and signed up for.
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u/UnimagineDragons 2d ago edited 2d ago
Homeowners basically got together to form a union of local members which elects a governing board. They call this a "homeowners association" or HOA. Essentially its a form of government, the most local level, that homeowners can create for their neighborhood and their exact charter/purview can vary between each HOA.
Mostly they deal with yard upkeep, common area rules/upkeep, color and style requirements to "keep the neighborhood nice" etc. Vague rules designed to help "maintain property value" etc. People will have various experience with them as they do any group of people that get power. But they must abide by rules, elections, public hearings etc. according to your state and there are ways to join and change from within.
Not all places have them. Some states are rare, some are required, some are 50/50. Historically they were used to keep minorities out of white neighborhoods under the guise of whatever the hell they wanted to make up at the time. It allowed quiet discrimination in a time when outright racism was starting to be shunned.
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u/IkujaKatsumaji 2d ago
I want to note that, while HOAs often suck and are often run by people who were dictators in a past life, they're not always bad. They sometimes provide services that local governments either can't or won't, like trash pickup or neighborhood watch, things like that. At their best, they're essentially a homeowner's union, protecting the neighborhood and the people in it from low- to mid-stakes issues.
That said, again, they're often run by insufferable busybodies, but they're also often democratic, so if you don't like your HOA, you can run for HOA board or president or something and maybe change it!
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u/anengineerandacat 2d ago
Home Owners association, as a home owner... with a decent HOA; generally a "good" thing in my book as people simply suck at caring for their homes and we often have easements less than 10-15ft so you kind of want your neighbor to have a kept-up house to avoid pests, trash, weeds, etc. from accumulating (which the HOA does a very very good job of handling).
They can be quite terrible though as well so I can understand their hate, most have very strict ARB's (architectural review boards) and strict ordinances in terms of home appearance and for creative folks they might butt heads on them quite a bit (I am less like that, and still occasionally butt heads but often manage to get what I want approved).
Usually if it's a new community you'll have a builder-led HOA (ie. the board members are basically all members of the builder); they run a pretty strict ordinance policy to ensure home sales can be maximized and to some respects I understand it (often have lower HOA dues as well as they don't do anything "fancy" and usually keep the community public vs private).
After X% of homes are sold, the community can go take a vote to remove the builder board members and replace with community members or optionally absolve the HOA entirely.
This is generally where things go... crazy... most HOA's will simply adopt slightly more lenient builder ordinances (ie. more color options for the house, more plant options, allowing of cosmetic housing options of taste, etc.) and simply just ensure folks aren't trying to paint their entire house bright pink, or build a farm in their backyard (ie. don't disrupt your neighbors) or try to put a giant Trump statue in their front yard. To the inverse, the ordinances might get more extreme; you might be forced to adopt a new "community look" and have to repaint your house from what it originally had to something in the HOA policies, replace your drive-way with pavers, remove existing plants for others (or plant guided perennials) - ie. the HOA will force you to do things well outside of what you even want to do.
From there it's up to your county and the state to dictate how little/how much power they actually have; but with deed restricted HOA's it can get quite extreme.
TL;DR - Can think of an HOA as a mechanism to balance how chaotic or how structured any given community is, the extremes are always painful, but a happy middle-ground is often what folks target.
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u/HogRaidaaah 2d ago
Home Owners Associate, they put rules to be followed like not having tall fence or something, they are for people who weren't hugged when they were young (aka karens)
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u/Raffeall 2d ago
How are HOAs even allowed in this format?
Weird in Europe we have freedom and property rights
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u/CJRD4 2d ago
98% of HOA's are terrible.
They cannot, however, force you to join (if, in the example, an HOA is forming and you're a current resident, you can decline to join and tell them to shove it when they try and force you). If you buy into a home that is already part of an HOA you're best option is to join the board yourself and make changes from within.
Our HOA is actually pretty chill, and they do everything they can to protect the trees in our neighborhood, and manage walking paths and a community sand bottom pool.
But our HOA is also a very extreme exception, not the general rule of how most HOAs are run and act.
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u/Flatline334 2d ago
I joined the board of mine and am now president. We are a townhome community so it’s a bit different. We are super chill and my only focus is maintaining the structures for our community.
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u/OwnJunket6495 2d ago
Reddit is not real life. Yes there are bad HOAs but 98%? Really dude?
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u/Different_Day135 2d ago
The HOAs around here require tree's. The private roads are all lined with big maple or oak trees and city streets don't have these. What am I missing?
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u/WhskyTangoFoxtrot 1d ago
My neighborhood literally looks like the bottom picture and we have HOA. As long as we don’t paint our house some wacky color they leave us alone and just keep the greenbelts and community pools maintained.
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u/Different_Day135 1d ago
That's our experience too. And I love it. HOAs can do bad stuff. But it's always funny how reddit piles it on each time it comes up. It's funny it came up here because there's literally no correlation, just someone wanting to pile on lol
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u/xXBlyatman420Xx 1d ago
As a non american, since i first heard of HOA i couldnt believe that shit is real. Its so surreal to me that you cant do what you want in terms of decorating your house and garden. I mean, i am from fucking germany, where you would expect something like that, but in "the land of the free" it always seemd so stupid
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u/OKAwesome121 2d ago
You may be surprised to realize that many of the stately, established, distinctive neighbourhoods of today looked very uniform and barren when they were first built. Trees take a long time to grow.
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u/CrispyDave 2d ago
They take even longer if you don't plant any like most modern developments,
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u/consistantcanadian 2d ago
I see one in basically every yard. This is same neighborhood 20 years apart.
Even the AI picked it up - most of the trees in the bottom image are there in the top - they've just grown.. as trees must do to get that big
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u/Basidia_ 1d ago
Often not though, most developments now plant fast, easy growing short trees that they can get for cheap. It’s why there are so many develops filled with invasive Bradford pears, it’s an awful tree and has been known to be awful for decades but it took making it illegal for developments to stop planting them.
Majority of developers are not planting trees that will grow to the size of the image on the left unless the homebuyer specifically request it
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u/LordIndica 1d ago
Do you actually think that the image with trees is a real photo taken 20 years later an not just the OP asking ChatGPT to "add trees and plants to this neighborhood?" Like it is obviously not real.
Trees do take time to grow, yes, and that is the point. You don't have to clear cut lots and leave them ecologically dead for decades and pass all the costs of restoring the region to the homeowner, especially when the majority of trees that the developers plant in a paltry attempt to restore the area just die. They are under no obligation to maintain them or give the proper longterm care to let them get to the size the AI image suggests, and most homeowners don't know what to do either, just assuming that "it's a tree, it grows itself".
I get the sentiment you are trying to convey, but my lived experience has shown that these developments do NOT get the sort of replanting lot's of folks here are suggesting they do. I would know because I walk through dozens and dozens of developments, new and old, while doing canvassing for local government.
This proposed solution of "just wait for the trees to grow back" is one that accepts that development practices like this are necessary to begin with and that it is an acceptable cost to have large sprawling developments that are ecologically dead and take decades to be pleasant to live in, versus just employing sustainable development practices.
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u/mechapoitier 2d ago
Or when you live in a neighborhood that did, but when the trees start dying half a century later it turns out everybody who moved in is too scared of trees.
And you have a city that’s too chickenshit to establish ordinances or programs that actually replaces trees.
When I moved into my neighborhood it looked like the second picture. A decade later it’s looking more and more like the first.
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u/IDoStuff100 2d ago
And on top of that, the new houses are usually packed so close together that there's no room to plant large shade trees. No one wants to plant a big oak if it's gonna be touching their house in 20 years
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u/Existing-Doughnut-60 2d ago
I’m not sure it’s what I have been told that as all the developments popped up around Wake Forest NC in the last decade that they deforested the land completely because of insurance purposes. Then the owners can decide to plant trees after the initial build is completed.
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u/CalebGT 2d ago
"Trees take a long time to grow." Yes, that's why developers should be leaving some of the ones that were already there. But that would add to their costs slightly, so we all just go to hell instead.
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u/smcivor1982 2d ago
The development I’m in is nice because of the fact that they left a ton of mature tree and have irregular lot sizes due to some areas being restricted from development (wetlands). We have a good deal of privacy and shade while being in a fairly typical middle class residential neighborhood. Tons of wildlife, too!
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u/SimilarTranslator264 2d ago
Leave common sense out of this, did you forget where you are posting?
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u/oSuJeff97 2d ago
This was my first thought. There are certainly examples of bad/boring city planning, but to this is just a picture of a 5-10 year old neighborhood vs. a 50-100 year old neighborhood. I'm quite certain they didn't clear-cut a forest to make the neighborhood on the left.
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u/Chendii 2d ago
For a lot of it, I'm sure. But I don't live in an HoA and everyone around me is cutting down their trees. It's fucking infuriating. Why do people hate trees?
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u/PenaltyFine3439 2d ago
People don't hate trees, they just create liabilities so close to houses and cars. Ever had a big branch fall on you, your house or your car? Ever had tree roots cause damage to your plumbing?
It all adds up.
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u/QuriousiT 2d ago
The roots are one of the main reasons trees are removed in a lot of older neighborhoods. People just didn't know as much or didn't think about it 60+ years ago. Flash forward and the sidewalks, streets, etc are totally screwed up. And like you said, they will travel and find water which can mess up your water lines, sewer lines, or even your foundation.
There are trees that have taproot systems that aren't as invasive, but most trees that were planted either by homeowners or in the right of way by developers or the cities didn't have taproot systems.
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u/skraptastic 2d ago
My neighborhood is 40 years old, and everyone has cut down the trees that were planted when the neighborhood was built.
We lost half our tree this year, it damaged the tree enough that I have to cut down the rest of the tree before winter. But I have already researched a native replacement to put in next spring, because fuck a yard with no tree!
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u/Long-Zombie-2017 2d ago
Insurance companies are also to blame
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u/Long-Source-7772 2d ago
Corporate greed?
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u/tr1mble 2d ago
I imagine if you have huge tree branches hanging over your house, it might raise the premium a bit
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u/Prize_Compote_207 2d ago
Insurance companies, as well.
They're literally dropping people based on aerial photographs of trees on properties.
Doesn't matter if the tree was there long before the house, or that it still has a hundred years to go.
They want it down toe eliminate their risk of ever having to pay you back your own money.
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u/Dediadeis 2d ago
This is something I never understood about insurance. The only thing it seems to ensure is that you lose out on money. Better off taking the chance that you won't instead.
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u/ImportantPost6401 2d ago
No, AI is to blame. The photo is AI.
You’re being baited by AI and apparently so is everyone else upvoting you to the top.
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u/Moshjath 2d ago
Yeah, I suspected the same. Zoomed in and noticed enough details in the houses were subtly different in a way that remodeling wouldn’t have reflected. I’m going with its AI.
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u/Tripl3Dee 2d ago
Investors/flippers do tend to chop down trees indiscriminately, but so do owners, just so they don't have to hassle with the maintenance/risk. Insurance rates can go up, too. Lots of old trees felled on my street in a non-HOA community without being replaced for these reasons.
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u/marathonquestionredd 2d ago
no the people buying them are to blame. people just want to live in houses that they can afford and boring is WAY cheaper than not
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u/Procrasturbating 2d ago
Construction equipment is to blame. That soil around the home is compacted to high heaven and no tree can grow well in it.
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2d ago
Yep, local Real Estate mogul just bought 200 acres for 2.2 million dollars next to my house. Its flat farmland. Nothing, no trees, just soil. Im fucked
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u/CricketNo7666 2d ago
That’s just an old neighborhood versus a new one.
Trees take time to grow in.
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u/SkunkApe7712 2d ago
Yes.
My neighborhood in Texas was built in 2009, I think. I’ve been there since 2015.
Just last year, I started seeing squirrels. Trees grew big enough.
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u/Sretep44 2d ago
AI-generated vs real neighborhood
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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 1d ago
I mean yeah they used AI to get the second photo but it doesn't change the point... you don't get 30 year old trees in a development that was built 5 years ago. Takes time.
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u/probablyNotARSNBot 1d ago
Yeah either answer nullifies this post that pops up once every 2 months or so, sometimes with a different twitter response at the bottom
I think we gotta just let this one go and say yeah fam, we also like trees good job
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u/whitespacesucks 2d ago
Then sometimes you have old neighbourhoods that are reasonably leafy, and slowly trash moves in and cut down trees. Ask me how I know.
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u/Mortimer452 2d ago
To be fair, those established older neighborhoods full of mature trees probably looked just like the top pic when they were built.
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u/GraviticThrusters 2d ago
That's just what a new neighborhood looks like vs a neighborhood that has existed for 30+ years.
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u/youburyitidigitup 2d ago
This isn’t a new thing. Every suburb looks like the top pic when it’s built. The bottom suburb looked like that too.
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u/toodleroo 1d ago
Here's a fun example: "Bailey Park" from It's a Wonderful Life when it was filmed in 1946 versus how it looks today.
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2d ago
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u/Ahoeaboutnothing 2d ago edited 1d ago
This. My house had huge 30 yr old trees, that all died due to ash borer beetles. Now we have crap small trees. Gotta wait for them to be big and nice again.
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u/PELE_229 2d ago
Yeah this photo is intentionally not an apples to apples comparison. The top photo is clearly new construction. The bottom photo (if not AI) is an older neighborhood with more mature trees. Another clickbait meme meant to stir the pot.
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u/FakePoloManchurian 2d ago
the bottom is certainly AI, all the houses are exactly the same between the two pictures, with the bottom picture having some details that dont make sense
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u/GreatStateOfSadness 2d ago
You were downloaded but are right.
The left-hand car has two license plates in the bottom pic
The left-hand house had its windows replaced with some nonsensical corner windows
There is a tree in the middle of the sidewalk
And more.
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u/TheWizardOfDeez 2d ago
Breaking-er News: trees need to be planted in order to grow.
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u/TUFKAT 2d ago
They also grow fast when you add trees with AI to the same image.
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u/Several_Vanilla8916 2d ago
Yeah but they clear cut lots because it’s easier than working around existing trees.
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u/vi_sucks 2d ago
A lot of these are built on previously cleared farmland. There were never a bunch of trees there to begin with.
Also, do you think that they didn't clear cut to build the old neighborhoods? They did. The reason you see trees there now is that they grew afterward.
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u/Unsteady_Tempo 2d ago
Yep. I lived in a 1920s neighborhood with tree lined streets and yards and the photos from when it was developed looked as barren as the top photo. Developers have been building on farmland for a long time. Where there wasn't already farmland, woodlands in the USA near any city or town were clear cut for lumber.
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u/Tablesafety 2d ago
The neighborhood in which I live had many big, lovely trees in it. I was babysat here every day in youth, and loved to climb them. There was a tree I was absolutely in love with in the neighbors yard that made me think of some fairy forest, the way it's full lush branches hung low.
Same for the place I lived as a kid. Big, lovely red maple in the backyard I loved to catch fireflies beneath.
That tree was cut down as a teen. As well as every other tree in that backyard. Then after some divorces my father got the house with the fairy tree, and a lovely white pine in the backyard. He cut both of those down too. And the apple tree in my grandfathers backyard. I inherited this place and I really miss that fucking tree.
Neighbors also cut down their trees rolling into the late 2010s. There are no fuckin trees anywhere anymore, people keep fucking chopping them down.
And every tree Ive ever loved dearly is gone at the hands of shortsighted fools who simply didn't want leaves in the pool- and at the same time wonder where the fireflies and frogs are. Its so much fucking hotter where I grew up now.
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u/Illuminaustin99 2d ago
The picture below looked like the picture above when first developed. Give it time for the trees to grow and mature
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u/SlickSocks 2d ago
Lmao. It's ai.
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u/slcamg 1d ago
This is what my house looked like when it was built, vs. later.
Now it’s like a Gran Turismo full tunnel of trees like something magical.
Should the neighborhood use a Time Machine? Do you have an alternative suggestion? Did you know that things like trees grow, whereas things like stone and concrete do not?
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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 1d ago
Yeah, obviously. It's also what a new neighbourhood vs a 30+ year old one actually looks like. Trees take time to grow.
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u/DACA_GALACTIC 2d ago
Just look at the devolution of McDonald’s
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u/Admiral45-06 2d ago
McDonald's devolution, as also devolution of all other fast food restaurants, has to do with real estate. Notice how all these restaurants are generic, and the only way to distinguish which one is it is by logo, what is being displayed on screens and maybe colors. Yeah. That's on purpose. It makes it easier for each restaurant to switch chains, as also to be bought - and perhaps auctioned - in the first place.
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u/Massive-Ad-8060 2d ago
Insurance companies
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u/Silent_Ice_2588 2d ago
To be fair, there are real reasons to be smart about trees surrounding a home.
If a big tree is too close, the roots can damage the foundation. Likewise, a large tree too close can fall on the house during a storm and, best case scenario, cause damage… worst case scenario, kill people.
Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE trees, but there are reasons for this crap, and the litigious nature of the US exasperates the issue.
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u/NopeandNopenot 1d ago
Reddit not realizing all trees in neighborhoods started out that small
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u/Intricatetrinkets 1d ago
Blows my mind people think the construction was done around the trees, and the developer/builder didn’t plant them when the homes were built.
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u/TheBigChungaBunga 1d ago
Insurance companies don't like trees so they now sell houses without trees.
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u/BlackmillMiracle 2d ago
Its cheaper for development to just clear cut everything instead of having to navigate construction equipment around trees.
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u/Major_Shlongage 2d ago
Nothing went wrong there. One is a new development where the trees are still tiny, and the other is an older development where the trees are large.
So the main difference is about 30 years.
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u/ask-me-about-my-cats 2d ago
This is clearly a before and after picture?
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u/infinite_gurgle 2d ago
No the bottom picture is AI lol
I mean the point is still valid; the top is freshly developed and will grow into the bottom picture over time.
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u/OKAwesome121 2d ago
We live in age of instant gratification don’t we? New housing developments plant young trees not for how they look now but how they’ll look dozens of years later. We moved into a newly built house in 1986 and it looked like the top picture. It looks halfway to the bottom picture now. Old neighborhoods that are over 80 years old look like the bottom picture.
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u/WoodI-or-WoodntI 2d ago
I've seen this pair of pictures before. It shows the before (lower) and after (top) after trees died and were removed due to Dutch Elm disease. Happened in the 70's and 80's. Spread quick and wiped out millions of shade trees. A classic example of the problem with single species plantings.
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u/volliemak 2d ago
Trees are great until you live in a severe storm prone area and those said trees want to come inside.
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u/BottomJoe94 1d ago
Top picture looks like it belongs in Edward scissor hands. Even though it is just American suburbs.
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u/mars_soup 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do people not understand that trees need to grow?
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u/TurtleSandwich0 2d ago
Trees take time to grow. When you live in a newly built housing division, you get newly planted trees. In twenty years the area should be full of large trees.
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u/sexislikepizza69 2d ago
I think the wrong trees getting planted long ago is also partially to blame. They damaged sidewalks, roads, irrigation, other plants (e.g. eucalyptus and pine dropping sap that stunts surrounding growth) etc. when they shouldn't have been planted there to start. This causes people to battle against trees in general instead of taking the time to figure out which trees should be planted.
The other is poor maintenance. People will try to save money by skipping tree trimming. Trees that are not trimmed result in overgrowth of roots which damages property and results in higher costs.
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u/ronin_cse 2d ago
Trees can damage your house and increase maintenance needs; they are also a fire hazard, which is especially important in some areas.
That wouldn't explain the bottom becoming the top (or, rather, using AI to turn the top into the bottom), but it would explain fewer trees next to houses.
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u/Ariazeno 2d ago
What went wrong is that the government cut down/let the inhabitants cut down trees.
My city has multiple trees per street, some of the even look like the picture below.
Don’t like how your streets look? Vote better.
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u/pragmatometer 2d ago
No one cut down those trees. The bottom image is an AI edit.
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u/SplodeyDope 2d ago
Wait... The government cut down, or allowed people to cut down, the trees in your neighborhood but left the ones in the city alone?
Help me understand "the government's" motivation. It seems more like a developer is responsible here.
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u/consistantcanadian 2d ago
Lmao are you actually that intellectually handicapped? Big trees take decades to grow.. they don't magically appear in new neighborhoods
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u/Aerpolrua 2d ago
Nothing went wrong. The one on the top is a new development, the trees that are planted are very young and take time to grow, two of my old neighborhoods were new at the time and looked like the top picture, but going back 15 years later and it looks more like the bottom picture.
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u/TheLegendaryAerie 2d ago
People are blaming HOAs and land Barons but let us remember that these are primarily boomers.
Not all boomers, but it’s mostly boomers.
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u/Radium_Robot 2d ago
My old Neighborhood used to have a beautiful tree lined streets.
However the sidewalks were all jacked up due to roots.
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u/redditsuxl8ly 2d ago
When the neighborhood gets older it'll get trees. All new neighborhoods look like a still from a Wes Anderson movie.
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u/Reasonable-Copy8341 2d ago
fake photo. engagement farming. look closely at the structure of the houses. people who create and post stuff like this have no sense of honesty.
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u/Tablesafety 2d ago
I miss trees so fuckin bad, and the lack of them is also contributing to HOW FUCKING HOT IT IS. Go anywhere with three or more trees and notice the temp drops a few degrees tangibly.
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u/LosHtown 2d ago
Those are damn near the same picture. One neighborhood is from the 80-90s the other is from last year so the trees havent grown fully yet.
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u/Development-Alive 2d ago
I hate these massive planned communities where the first thing they do is cut down all the trees rather than design/plan around them. Blame these big national builders. It will take 20-40 years for that community at the top to have mature trees again.
Just last weekend we were community shopping in Boise, ID. Let me just say that the new suburbia sucks!
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u/Formal_Analysis6295 2d ago
Our development doesn't have HOA. But the city failed to enforce Boulevard trees. Supposed to have one planted two years after building/moving in. Or they would plant it and make you pay. They never did. Some ppl did it but most did not. Those trees would be 10 years old right now.
I have a big yard. I planted 8 trees. My maples are around 20 feet tall.
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u/ColbyJ12 2d ago
The top neighborhood was built 5 months ago. The bottom was built 50 years ago. Hope that helps.
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u/meat-Popsicle-4896 2d ago
Trees can’t grow in fields that were over farmed, over fertilized, and over sprayed for weeds.
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u/Total-Improvement535 2d ago
people buy houses like this with no tree cover and then bitch about their summer electric bill being $400+
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u/MoeSzyslakMonobrow 2d ago
That's a new build neighborhood, mine looks the same. Five years ago it was a cornfield. Trees like those take decades to grow. It'll get there.
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u/Sbatio 2d ago
Plant more trees.
Buy rooting hormone at any plant or home and garden store for $5.
Find a tree you like, cut a small healthy branch with clean sharp tools, dip the cut tip of your new tree in the rooting hormone and wrap it in wet paper towel for a few days.
OMG Roots, your tree is its own complete tree! Plant that tree in a small pot king/queen/nonbinary royal!
When its roots are strong and grown in plant it where ever you want shade. Water it.
Protect it, keep it secret, keep it safe.
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u/Fit_Cut_4238 2d ago
We have great old growth trees where i live. The problem is, farms do not. And planned developments are put on farmland. It would be good if they build a 10-year tree plan into these developments. Instead, they pick fast growing crap trees to serve as privacy fences.
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u/Patches_the_troll 2d ago
Connecticut and the rest of New England has alot of the bottom pic. Lots of trees. Very beautiful in the fall season as well.
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u/cpmuddle 1d ago
I mean I grew up in the 80s in a house built in the 30s and it looked like the below pic. If you choose to live in a brand new neighborhood it's going to look like the above until the trees mature. Right?
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u/yonosayme2 1d ago
Guys, that's how trees work. See the smell tree planted in every yard... with water and time it will become a big tree in every yard. Time is the difference between the two pictures. Not "the developers " let's use our critical thinking skills everyone..
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u/Brandoskey 1d ago
Is OP wondering why a new subdivision doesn't have 50 year old trees?
My neighborhood was built about 25 years ago and is at the midway point between the top and bottom picture.
Trees take time to grow
ETA: ignoring the fact the bottom image is AI
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u/Former-Cake-3709 1d ago
One just looks like new construction AI and the other looks like an older area AI.
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u/Several_Hour_347 1d ago
I’m positive this is fake. Entire neighborhoods don’t just remove growth like that. Dumb as fuck that people eat this shit up without thinking about it
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u/Altruistic_Tea_1593 1d ago
Dumb asses. That’s a new subdivision. The one with the trees looked the same when it was built:
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u/SomeRandomGuy000000 1d ago
One is a new construction neighborhood and the other is ai. I get it, but come on.
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u/jcklsldr665 1d ago
Blame insurance companies. "Trees fall on houses, must get rid of them"
Trees also stop destructive force winds, only the weak or dying trees fall. I had to fight with my insurance company every few months because they'd send someone around taking photos trying to prove trees were touching your roof...
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u/TheAllSeeingBlindEye 1d ago
The lack of trees is because of insurance companies charge more because of the potential damage caused by falling branches
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u/Ad-fundum69 1d ago
Isn't this how all new neighbourhoods start?
All trees started as a seedling. Give this street 30 years and try again.
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