You gotta love this!
(Hauled from my archives.)
What about creating an urban forest overnight?
"This week, 150 mature trees — 20 feet high, trucked to Detroit from as far away as Buffalo, N.Y. — are being planted at Van Dyke and Goethe on vacant lots. They add heft and height to John Hantz's big idea: That reclaiming land for agriculture or trees will help restore pride and beauty to an area that's been demoralized by abandonment."
Here are two views of before (2011) and after (2015). It'll be great to continue to monitor this urban forest!
Detroit vacant lot (before):
Detroit urban forest (after):
News Articles:
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/metro-detroit/2014/10/13/overnight-detroit-forest-years-hantz/17218305/http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/10/14/trees-hauled-detroit-jump-start-urban-forest/17238189/
Plus: read these other posts about the urban ecology opportunities for Detroit streams called daylighting (for Michigan urban waterways)!
P.S. Check out my latest "urban wild" nature blog: Wild. Here. (2016 update)
Planting trees is always a good idea. It would be better if they had not planted a single species (apparently) and in rows though...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your comment Roger! I totally agree!
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if this mimicked a natural forest and even had some paths where people could walk through and feel like they were exploring a small wood lot. (In the articles above they explain that this project was done with the understanding that the trees would be harvested in 40 years. I guess the hope is at that time the lot can be used for urban redevelopment again? So that might be part of the reason that this was done like a typical planted forest in rows.)