CHICAGO | General Developments

[Mr Downtown]

^The bigger worry is that clueless young people would post their assumptions—with pictures—on social media, where #AppleStoreChainsawMassacre would go viral.

[BVictor1]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

^The bigger worry is that clueless young people would post their assumptions—with pictures—on social media, where #AppleStoreChainsawMassacre would go viral.

LOL... Ahh... millennials.

[Chi-Sky21]

Yes.....god forbid someone should express any concern for some nice trees. They are just meaningless sacrifices to our god consumerism. I would hate for anyone to look up from their i-phones and maybe appreciate the real world around them. Glad to see they are being replaced. Always nice to have trees around and I am not even a crazy environmentalist or a millennial.

[J_M_Tungsten]

That will likely still happen since most people rarely read posted signage.

[MayorOfChicago]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

Yes.....god forbid someone should express any concern for some nice trees. They are just meaningless sacrifices to our god consumerism. I would hate for anyone to look up from their i-phones and maybe appreciate the real world around them. Glad to see they are being replaced. Always nice to have trees around and I am not even a crazy environmentalist or a millennial.

Yes, I hate to see a mature healthy tree cut down, it makes me really bummed, especially when it seems to be done with no regard of possibly saving the tree.

There's a huge sycamore tree on Fremont near my house and when they tore down the house on the lot and put up one of those large 5-story walk up's you see all over Lakeview I noticed the tree was really struggling. I was keeping an eye on it this spring, but it's officially dead. They've even gone to all the effort of sodding and landscaping all around the tree and the building is currently on the market. Now they're going to have to come back in and tear the huge sucker down. I was mentioning it multiple times to my friends that I was afraid it was dead and kept pointing it out. They just looked at me confused like....."it's a f-ing tree...".

I'm glad it's only 5-6 trees on the riverwalk that they tore down (I believe). It wasn't a full scale slaughter.

In Iowa City (my hometown), I went back and they had torn down THREE HUNDRED TREES to raise and do work on a road coming into the city. I almost died. It was horrifying to drive into town, it's the main "pretty" street coming into campus.

[UrbanLibertine]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

Yes.....god forbid someone should express any concern for some nice trees. They are just meaningless sacrifices to our god consumerism. I would hate for anyone to look up from their i-phones and maybe appreciate the real world around them. Glad to see they are being replaced. Always nice to have trees around and I am not even a crazy environmentalist or a millennial.

[rlw777]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

Yes.....god forbid someone should express any concern for some nice trees. They are just meaningless sacrifices to our god consumerism. I would hate for anyone to look up from their i-phones and maybe appreciate the real world around them. Glad to see they are being replaced. Always nice to have trees around and I am not even a crazy environmentalist or a millennial.

I think if you have an appreciation for architecture and design you should probably have some appreciation for trees.

"If you look at a tree and think of it as a design assignment, it would be like asking you to make something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy's fuel, makes complex sugars and food, changes colors with the seasons, creates microclimates, and self-replicates."
- William McDonough

[Skyguy_7]

I love trees as much as the next guy, it's just funny the extent developers have to go these days to appease Millennials. I'm a Millennial yet I hold a great disdain for them #worstgeneration #omg #icanteven #LOL #this. #internet #participationtrophy #feelthebern

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

^ good, I'm all for more midrises downtown. These two on Wabash are just fine. The one down by the Lake Street tower was supposed to be significantly uglier am I right? it still is odd to see a design clearly referencing the industrial architecture of the West Loop all the way over a block from Millennium Park.

Yes - you're definitely right about the earlier version of the little Wabash (near Lake) apartment building proposal......I personally found that version actually offensive, whereas the new design is mostly just "odd".....

[r18tdi]

Originally Posted by BVictor1

LOL... Ahh... millennials.

Headlines like this certainly don't help things:
Riverfront Trees Axed To Make Way For New Apple Store

"Have an opinion? What do YOU think?? Should the city have SAVED the TREES?? COMENT BELOW. COMENT NOW. SHARE YOUR OPINION! COMENT!!!"

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by Skyguy_7

I love trees as much as the next guy, it's just funny the extent developers have to go these days to appease Millennials. I'm a Millennial yet I hold a great disdain for them #worstgeneration #omg #icanteven #LOL #this. #internet #participationtrophy #feelthebern

Im not sure what this has to do with "millennials" (why dont we just throw Hipster into this too while we're busy making lazy baseless generalizations).

My parents old block had dozens of 100 year old trees growing up, in both people's front and back yards. Despite being pretty urban, it felt like living in an old growth forest (think some of the older section of Oak Park for comparison). The canopies surrounded and towered over every home, alleys included...even then it felt like a privilege to live in a place with that sort of vegetation. One by one theyve been slowly lost without being replaced and now its just a depressing hellscape of a street. The homes are still the same but the feel of the street has just completely changed and no longer has the unique curb appeal it once did. Its going to take an entire generation or two to get it back the way it was, and that assuming everyone replanted today. You cant replicate that sort of thing over night. Also this dosent even touch on how much hotter their home is in the summer (its very noticeable).

[msu2001la]

These were Honey Locust trees. It's not as if they cut down some old-growth oaks or something.

Honey Locust trees are like weeds. They grow anywhere and everywhere. Very common street tree in Chicago because they can tolerate all kinds of terrible environments and still thrive.

Chicago does a pretty good job overall managing trees. The forestry department likely had zero issues with the removal of these.

[Pioneer]

Originally Posted by Skyguy_7

I love trees as much as the next guy, it's just funny the extent developers have to go these days to appease Millennials. I'm a Millennial yet I hold a great disdain for them #worstgeneration #omg #icanteven #LOL #this. #internet #participationtrophy #feelthebern

Literally laughed out loud (err, lol'd) at the hash tags.

[woodrow]

I looked at the trees they are going to use for replacement - http://www.chicagobotanic.org/plantinfo/marmo_maple_0 - they look like they will be lovely trees.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Skyguy_7

I love trees as much as the next guy, it's just funny the extent developers have to go these days to appease Millennials. I'm a Millennial yet I hold a great disdain for them #worstgeneration #omg #icanteven #LOL #this. #internet #participationtrophy #feelthebern

As someone who fits into the category - yeah pretty much. Many are annoying as hell, but there's a lot who are not.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

One by one theyve been slowly lost without being replaced and now its just a depressing hellscape of a street.

Unfortunately these things are fleeting. Some of the best street trees (ashes, elms) have been lost to invasive pests, while successful neighborhoods often lose trees simply because construction activity and trees don't mix. Losing trees for a street widening is tragic, but sometimes all it takes is a water main replacement or new water service.

Chicago at least has a landscape ordinance that requires large developments to provide trees from a pre-approved list of trees likely to survive. (This doesn't apply to commercial streets.)

I like driving through the parts of Lakeview and Lincoln Park that gentirified decades ago and seeing how the tree canopy has been re-established.

[UPChicago]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

Yes.....god forbid someone should express any concern for some nice trees. They are just meaningless sacrifices to our god consumerism. I would hate for anyone to look up from their i-phones and maybe appreciate the real world around them. Glad to see they are being replaced. Always nice to have trees around and I am not even a crazy environmentalist or a millennial.

Perfect response, some people can appreciate historic structures (some of them anyways), root for new development and be an environmentalist all at the same time, it isn't illegal........well at least not illegal at the present time.

[VKChaz]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Im not sure what this has to do with "millennials" (why dont we just throw Hipster into this too while we're busy making lazy baseless generalizations).

My parents old block had dozens of 100 year old trees growing up, in both people's front and back yards. Despite being pretty urban, it felt like living in an old growth forest (think some of the older section of Oak Park for comparison). The canopies surrounded and towered over every home, alleys included...even then it felt like a privilege to live in a place with that sort of vegetation. One by one theyve been slowly lost without being replaced and now its just a depressing hellscape of a street. The homes are still the same but the feel of the street has just completely changed and no longer has the unique curb appeal it once did. Its going to take an entire generation or two to get it back the way it was, and that assuming everyone replanted today. You cant replicate that sort of thing over night. Also this dosent even touch on how much hotter their home is in the summer (its very noticeable).

Yes, this is not only a generational matter. Those of us in the older generations have a considerable appreciation for trees - perhaps partly because we have seen firsthand the length of time it takes trees to mature. Besides the environmental and summer cooling benefits, trees increase property values. Many areas - like Lake Forest locally - frown upon tree removal (many here may remember the episode of Mr. T)
http://chicago.curbed.com/2011/6/22/10460682/revisiting-mr-ts-1987-lake-forest-chainsaw-massacre

And despite efforts to plant more trees (not uncommon in cities these days), Chicago still has a ways to go to become known as a really well-forested city.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by VKChaz

And despite efforts to plant more trees (not uncommon in cities these days), Chicago still has a ways to go to become known as a really well-forested city.

I think a big problem too, esp in the more urban parts of the city, is that the efforts to plant more trees dosent really get a lot of follow up once theyre in the ground. It seems like 1/2 the time the trees die within a year or two (not surprising given that theyre completely surrounded by concrete and utilities), then get sawed off at the base, and then its no better than it was before (despite the city still touting that they planted such and such many more). Or they never grow much larger than twigs.

San fran manages to make it work quite well esp on commercial corridors compared to Chicago. I know climate is hardly the same, but the city still needs to respect such a cause for them to be able to grow decade after decade despite similar limitations.


http://emilychang.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/P10101771.jpg

[marothisu]

I actually find Chicago pretty good with trees for an urban place. Could be better in some areas, but there's more coverage on average than some other places of urban nature.