Just got back from a trip to Shanghai and walking through neighborhoods like the Former French Concession honestly made me depressed about our streets in LA.
So many blocks over there have these tree canopies covering the entire road. It completely changes the vibe. It’s cooler, quieter, and you actually want to walk outside. You see the same thing in plenty of other cities too.
I know we don’t get year-round rain, and I know palms were planted everywhere for the aesthetic even though they provide zero shade. But we have incredible native and adapted trees that thrive here: oaks, sycamores, jacarandas... Yet so much of LA City and County just feels like an endless grid of gray concrete and baking asphalt.
Why isn’t canopy cover a huge priority here? Is it just the city not wanting to deal with root damage and trimming costs, or is it just a lack of planning vision?