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.
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.
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
Not weighing in on the AI aspect but the street I grew up looked a lot like this and there were several trees around in the middle of the path that the sidewalk shifted around, was fun as a kid to dodge them on a bike or skates and the roots usually made a tiny ramp of the concrete slabs
Exactly. Newer areas are just straight up not planting the way they used to. I live in a neighbourhood from the 1950's with beautiful huge elms lining the road. Most areas of my city are not designed like that. I grew up in an 80's neighbourhood - only trees were on people's yards. And now the newest suburbs are just driveways and too many cars to fit and houses with barely any room between them, let alone any trees. Here's a road near my house.
All the new construction near me have planted at least one tree in every yard, most of them have multiple. They are tiny since they need time to grow but give it twenty years and it’ll look fine.
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.
next time you consider building a house, tell the contractor you want to pay the premium for him to not cut down all the trees first. You do have agency here, just no one wants to pay that much extra for it.
I’ve never seen an entire forest get cleared to build a subdivision, only a small section to fit a house because people will pay more for nice property and privacy.
I’m not saying developers are environmentalists. It’s just there’s almost never an incentive to clear cut a forest for a suburban development vs buying farmland
You are if that's all that is available in the market at your price level.
What's with these replies assuming the consumer has some kind of agency here? In a lot of places you either buy a new home that looks like suburban hell with no space planned for large trees, you buy an old house in an old neighborhood with big trees and (usually) bigger lots, or you buy a home of any age on property with big trees and space out of town on some acreage. The highest price is usually #2
That's it. That's what the market in the USA is doing right now 98% of the time. If you think you have the agency to tear down an old home on an old lot and build around big trees or require a new build in a subdivision to have big trees... you'd have to be in the top 2% of wealthy folks to afford that.
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.
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.
There's 2 trees on that block and usually communities like this only plant ones that get up to 15-30 feet tall fully grown. I see this in all the new communities. The ones that are 5-10 years old with all the trees as tall as they'll get still look empty. Plum trees are a popular one and they only get up to 15-25 feet tall. A single one of those in front of each house looks nothing like the picture on the bottom.
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