On Urban Forestry

Severing Unruly BranchesWhy is it that pictures of Lakewood from 1950 strike such fear into my heart, fear of the unnatural, but pictures of Lakewood today do little more than make me bored? I asked myself this question as I read D.J. Waldie's Holy Land and at first I wondered if the black and white aerial photographs were somehow creepier than today's colored ones, or if it was the old cars and poodle-skirted housewives in front on each house that reminded me too much of the movie Pleasantville. Then Waldie flicked the switch in my brain at his mention of urban forestation. In the 1950's the trees planted in front of each house were still saplings and the landscape appeared barren; but today the trees, planted twice and often thrice over, have reached maturity and tower over driveways and houses, providing shade and privacy to each little box. There's just something about those trees that has transformed Lakewood into a "real" place. A place that looks like it has "history". So I did a little research and thinking about Urban Forestry.
Part of the reason so many people joined the mass exodus out to suburbs in the mid 20th century was to get away from the industrial grind of cities that no longer had anything natural about them. What was supposed to be natural about a place like Lakewood beats me, but apparently the absence of smog and and factory smoke was enough. But developers and city planners knew that Lakewood would need trees - hence the planting of one in front of every single house. Urban planners and psychologists alike often agree that trees increase mental health and that the absence of nature in a person's daily life can have a negative effect. When planning and developing a suburb or city, a certain aesthetic is often produced as a formula for the happiness of each resident. A tree, some grass, those things should liven up our lives right? But is this simple formula actually effective? We all like to open our window and see leaves, birdies making nests, the smell of fresh cut grass.
In several of China's big cities millions of dollars have been spent developing parks and green belts around commercial areas. In New York City central park provides a green escape for Manhattan's harried residents. The old Miami neighborhood of Coral Gables is famous for its myriad tropical trees.
But what Urban Forestry is really about is not only creating a "natural" environment in an urban setting, but also controlling it. In Lakewood the city is responsible for pruning the trees in residents' front yards and removing trees with over ambitious roots chewing up sidewalks. Waldie says that though their are no laws requiring Lakewood residents to mow their lawns regularly, maintaining one's property becomes part of a social contract. No one wants to look at an overgrown front yard and neighbors will probably complain to the city if they have to.
Forestry is a misnomer. We aren't creating forests in our urban areas, we're just planting a few trees. Forests are big and uncontrollable; we like to be able to dominate the nature we create in our cities and cookie cutter suburbs. So is that really "nature"?
Regardless of what it indicates about human nature, the planting of trees and inclusion of parks in the development of Lakewood may not have made a huge difference in the first years of the suburb, but over fifty years later a little bit of green goes a long way.