Can you see three trees?

My previous house, which was a pretty big "modern" house, on 7th floor, had no tree in view, I didn't realize how it affected me, but everyday I grew more cluster-phobic, days went I was having sudden panic attacks, with sudden imagination of being stuck in a closed box.

Now we changed to a much smaller house on 5th floor, it's so much older than the previous house, but it has a lake side view full of trees, I can look out and see them from my window.

And now I realize in some extent, how badly the previous house affected me. My cluster-phobic episodes are completely gone, and I don't have those stuck feelings any more. I know I still have it, i feel it coming if the door knob gets slightly stuck, and takes little bit more time, but other then that none of the actions that used to cause it, not causing it anymore.

In our city we build jail cells for house in the name of safety. So all windows of the house are grided with no way to get out of the house in case the front door caught fire. But these trees gives me peace. I don't have to look at them, knowing that they are just by the window, makes me so much relaxed.

I still can't fathom how people can cut them down

I had a moment a few years ago (while on vacation) after a long flight. We set a blanket out under a huge tree and napped in the park all afternoon. I was staring up at a massive tree for probably 3 or 4 hours straight, basically doing nothing else.

It is remarkable how calming it is to just sit there and stare at a tree.

Now everywhere I live has to have a big tree somewhere nearby. There’s one right outside and I spend at least several minutes, sometimes much longer, just staring at it.

Staring at a tree, 10/10

A few years ago, I spent a summer renting a 1 bedroom new build apartment in the south part of Seattle. The only outside light or fresh air came from a sliding door that overlooked an interior parking garage. It always smelled like fumes. Couldn't even see the sky from most angles. I was convinced after that that living conditions without access to fresh air and nature are probably one of the more potent causes of neuroticism in city-dwellers. Lack of AC didn't help either when it was hitting the 90s at multiple points that summer.

This is probably the one area that most cities in North Carolina excel at. We don't have great sidewalks or transit, but we have a ton a trees. Less than we used to though. But from my current apartment, I'm closer to seeing 300 trees than 3. The post-hurricane-Hugo effort to buy out houses in flood prone zones and turn them into greenways was probably the single smartest thing Charlotte and the surrounding towns have done (though I'm glad we got our light rail too - too bad for Raleigh). It's a good pattern - protects the natural watershed, gives wildlife a safe place to live, makes flooding less impactful, and creates pleasant away-from-road paths for walking and biking.

> Every home, school and office should have a view of at least three trees, be in a neighbourhood with 30% tree cover, and be within 300 metres of a park

Something like this has always been a driver of my home search. I've been lucky/glad to find something, but it's always been a stretch.

But as a more realistic policy I would start with homes and with ensuring schools have a play area with plants larger than the kids and too dense to see through.

I think the secondary effects on planning are just as important: urban planning goes awry when it fails to consider livability and beauty. Livability includes walkability, non-car transportation, and parking for car-dependent transportation -- things you need to do most days. Beauty has obvious direct effects, but indirectly it also encourages people to take care of the place, and to avoid being seen e.g., as a litterer.

As policy encouraging changes, it would be good to start with environmental enhancement sections in each permit, and (if possible) to publish them before they are finalized for people to contribute proposals. This expertise is rare in developers so advice would be welcome, and providing the opportunity would probably encourage people to contribute, with ideas and perhaps funding. (There should be no provision for blocking permits, to avoid adverse NIMBY incentives.)

Access to nature was something I sort of subconsciously selected for when I moved a few years back to be closer to the kids. It got me curious how close my situation was to the idealized standard in the post and I have to say, I think they nailed it.

I'm a little lucky to have found a house that borders a large therapeutic horse riding center so looking out my back windows (chain link fence on the back so minimal obstruction) I am looking straight into a small forest. That aside, my own property has 3 trees between 25' - 60` tall out front and out back there's an 80' tall sweet gum tree (it's lucky I value it's existence slightly more than I loathe the 6 billion stupid spike balls out drops for me every year) an 80' (I believe) maple, and a useless 95' Pine tree that the squirrels are slowly De-Branching).

It's a small property in the suburbs so those trees give me well over 30% coverage so I've got 2/3.

Quick check on Google maps and unfortunately I'm 483 meters away from my neighborhood park so I missed the mark there. But I think having 3-4 large parks all connected by 15+miles of hiking trails, a botanical garden, and an arboretum within a 5 mile radius more than makes up for that extra 183 meters.

Having spent the last 3+ years living with this level of access to nature spaces, it's become the bare minimum I expect from wherever I move in the future. And if I'm honest, I'll likely not be happy with anything less than being able to see more nature than society when I step out of the house..

One thing that I really really like about living in Amsterdam, is that we have trees and plants everwhere. Also, for 2 years now, city stopped cutting most of the plant growth in parks and on the side of roads. Its so beautiful green and colourful now and insects are having a great time. I counted this year already 6 different sorts of humblebees in my garden.

It’s maybe a good rule of thumb, but as I’m just outside of Helsinki for a while now, I’ve just realized what’s the difference between here and everywhere in central and south Europe: the trees are large and old. Even if there are trees in Vienna, Budapest, Brussels etc they are small, and very young compared to here. Even in the greener small Belgian villages, they are not that green than here, just outside of Helsinki’s city center.

And here, somehow, that stupid excuse that they destroy utility cables and pipes didn’t cause to cut them out. It seems that it’s possible to solve this.

And of course, I’m basically in a forest. There are trees everywhere. The “park” here is an at least 100 years old forest. There is one about 30 meters from here, and about 500 meters an even larger one, where I’ve just lost today.

Of course, the city center is different, but even comparing the outskirts of other cities, this is very-very green.

I think these simplifications end up hurting more than helping.

30% tree cover looks very different depending on the trees your municipality chooses.

For example, Barcelona covers everything with a variety of Platanus, which is easier to keep than other trees, but it’s quite dirty and produces A LOT of pollen. For me, that I’m allergic to it, it just makes the city unavailable for 2-4 weeks every year.

Having smaller plants, with more variety also feels much better than just sprinkling the right amount of massive trees with equal spacing. I’m pretty convinced part of the “we need more green” feeling people get is actually “I need something in my environment to not look like a grid”.

I live in a rain forest, so this post confused me for a minute. I was expecting some kind of on-screen optical illusion, but it turned to be asking about actual physical trees outside my window.

Yeah, I can see trees. I can see about fifty trees without standing up from my desk. I cut down more than three trees a month, probably. The weirdest ones are yagrumo - in about five years they can be fifty feet tall and the wood is so soft you can cut them down with a butter knife, just about. Before moving here, I'd never really considered that the Venn circles of "tree" and "weed" can overlap.

I was walking in central London and something felt wrong. I couldn't quite tell what though, but I had this constant feeling of unease.

It took me a few days to understand - there are no trees in central London (the City).

Sure, you have a small/big park here and there, but no random trees on side walks. It's literally a (beautiful) concrete/glass wasteland.

Note: I only walked a few of the main streets, I'm sure I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's quite noticeable compared with other cities after you realize it. And there are random trees in other areas, outside City of London.

No because I planted a tree very close to the window, blocking view of other trees.

Tree cover is great but I wish cities would just consider shade a bit more. As the world heats up, it's insane that so many places humans need to be for extended amounts of time have enough shade for a handful of people at best and often nothing. I'm thinking long sidewalks, waiting areas, playgrounds.

Hah, looking out my window, I can see about 300 trees, and it’d be more if it weren’t for all the trees in the way. The house is next to a park that’s designed for walking in, with lots of twisty pathways between trees and bushes to give you the feeling that you’re not in a manufactured space.

Some photos would be really awesome. What does a view in an area that passes the test look like compared to one that doesn't? 3 trees doesn't sound like a lot, I don't have a good mental concept of this.

Christopher Alexander has a pattern: Light From Two Sides[0], that is similar.

[0] https://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/aplsample/apl159/apl159....

Singapore here, checking all the boxes. 200m from a neighborhood park with many trees, and ~700m from a GARGANTUAN park, Jurong Lake Gardens, over 4 km in length with many times that in pathways through gardens and around a lake.

In our small town, the local compliance officer is colluding with a tree-cutting company that has a contract with the city. They lie and claim trees are "dead" and they're constantly cutting them down unnecessarily at the taxpayer's expense. Pretty soon we're going to look like one of those new suburbs that are just concrete and grass, but with old houses.

Esbo / Espoo is an odd one out, of those four. The three others look like the olden European cities you'd expect, but you'll have a hard time getting around in Espoo without a car. There are plenty of beautiful neighborhoods in Espoo, but it's basically a large spread of separate suburbs rather than a city in the way the rest are. The actual "Espoo Center" is not very green and flowery either, and it's not really thought of as an actual city center.

> Every home, school and office should have a view of at least three trees, be in a neighbourhood with 30% tree cover, and be within 300 metres of a park.

The middle one seems a lot harder to me than the other two.

Yes. I live in a "forest community" in the outskirts of Portland, OR. But I got a chuckle thinking what do you define as a "tree"? I have three Douglas firs that are big enough that if you cut them down you could build a small house out of the lumber from each one or a medium sized one from all three. I have a similar number of big leaf maples that are not as tall but have huge canopies. Then a whole bunch that are more "urban" sized trees, magnolias, dog woods, Japanese maples. Tons of tree "plants" that are working their way up but I would not consider trees yet. Then the shrubs that are pretending to be trees, camellias, rhododendrons, et. All on a half acre. Then there are the thousands on the hill side across a small valley...

That first map seems to map quite closely to koppen climate zones across the continent. Its hard to say whether the climate is decisive here because climate is a big influencer of urban design. However, its interesting that in Australia its the two Mediterranean climate cities (Perth and Adelaide) which frequently get labelled as worse for tree cover compared to the sub tropical east coast cities.

I wonder why they didn't mention Atlanta, which probably meets the criteria except perhaps some parts are a little more than 300m from a park. The canopy here is about 47%.

Thanks for sharing! I had no idea about the “3-30-300 test,” even though I always pay attention to city trees.

I can, however, easily explain the division in Europe: In Italy (for example, in Palermo), the vigorous growth of many species very often leads to significant damage to infrastructure.

Here in Vienna, there’s a directory of trees[1] where you can see, among other things, the species and age.

[1] https://baumkarte.at/

I read Don Quixote and thought it might be fun to visit some parts of Spain mentioned in the books. Then after looking at some maps and seeing a stark lack of trees, I decided I wouldn't enjoy the trip.

I like to use wildlife as a proxy for the quality of a location. If you can see things like rabbits and squirrels on a regular basis, you are probably doing reasonably ok. I have to put up fences and other barriers or the deer will eat everything in my yard.

I've seen suburban development that would easily satisfy the three tree test from any window on any property, but they still come off as desolate wastes. The age of the trees seems to be a non trivial factor.

If you need help finding trees near you, you can check TreeFinder.net.

I learned from geoguessr pro, Rainbolt, that every tree and its species is mapped for NYC: https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org/tree-map

Now I am curious if there is a dataset for the location of every tree in every city in the world? https://overpass-turbo.eu?

What struck me is that the "three trees from your window" part sounds almost trivial until you actually test it

I would have like to see the map of cities that matches this 3-30-300 rule.

> People who can see at least three trees from their window have better mental health than those who can't. It seems like the easiest of the three goals to achieve

Here we go, correlation does not equal causation. Simple as that. Planting 3 trees will not give you a better mental health nor will planting 10 trees. But moving in to an environment where many trees grow in front of your window will probably change a lot more than just putting trees in your view.

I live next to a greenbelt in Florida, so yes.

‘Beneath the pavement, the beach!’

Montevideo, Uruguay here. I can see 3, 300, and 3.000 for sure. Not sure if 30.000. May well be.

I'm in Australia and I have view on a mountain so I see too many trees to count. Proximity to a forest was top priority for me and my wife.

Having lived in Europe for many years before, this is something that's most striking about Australia. I live in a state with one of the highest population densities and yet it still feels very sparsely populated relatively speaking.

I'm happy to report I can see much more than 3 out every window.

No data for NW Scotland, presumably because 140mph winds for four weeks of the year (in the local language we call that "January") is incompatible with large trees.

> I only walked a few of the main streets

Person walks along main roads in London and complains they see no trees. Meanwhile in other news .... :)

London is one of the most tree-ridden cities on this earth, so I dread to think what "main streets" you were walking along.

currently where i am right now its like i am living in a forest , yeah but when i was living in the city it feels like that trees dont exist anymore

There! Are! Three! Trees!

-- Picard

Am I the only one that stared at the photo at the top for 3 minutes trying to see three trees in the photo because I thought it was a post about optical illusions? No, oh ok.

American zoning forbids taller ~6 story residential building and trades open green space parks for shorter, 1-2 story buildings. The lower density means people are further away from the few parks that do exist too.

Well, I live up high in a penthouse with an amazing river view and hundreds of maple trees that also change colors throughout the seasons. I wish I could share it but I am certain some of you might geolocate it.

Edit: for canada map since the article ignores the country entirely, check https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/country/CAN/

Alternative approach: Screw parks.

Parks are not nature. Parks are a sanitized parody of the natural world. They are a simulation meant to make us humans feel better about ourselves. They are gated grass farms, not wild areas, useful only to a select few animals (nothing bigger than a raccoon). Creating a park inside a urban area diverts land from actual nature. So, rather than build parks inside cities, we should develop that land and make our cities smaller.

We don't have to go all 40k hive world. Rather, if parks are kept at the urban periphery and/or are connected to each other, then they can thrive as actual natural space. We have modern transport technology. We can bring the people to the park rather than construct a park near the people and thereby deprive Bambi and all his friends of yet another acre of true wilderness.

Totally random numbers picked up to be a catching name for trying to get celebrity.

Could have been 200 meters or 500 meters or 4 trees or 2 or flowers.

This is the kind of ideology that is ruining public policies instead of being grounded on concrete and scientific facts and goals.

The "3 trees out of a window" sounds like an idiotic criterion because it ignores the elevation factor. In the exact same building, it's very likely you will see a couple dozen trees from a 10th floor window, and only one from a ground floor window. But which situation actually puts you closer to the flora?

Looks great, are they interactive maps showing these data?

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