Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I've heard about this Italian-American aversion to street trees and greenery, anecdotally. Had a coworker with a dispute with Italian-American neighbors about tree coverage and landscaping. Also heard about Italian-American neighbors protesting the city installing street trees.
Just randomly Streetviewing around the most Italian-American parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island, not sure I'm seeing it. There are probably Mediterranean landscaping distinctions, as opposed to WASP norms, but not a huge difference. And these same areas nowadays tend to have lots of Greeks and former Soviets, so not sure what I'm looking at.
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This is such a weird conversation but it is notable that there are very few street trees in South Philadelphia (a very Italian American neighborhood both historically and today...though it has plenty of other types of people who live there as well).
I know plenty of people who have anecdotally told me stories about their Italian neighbors butchering or removing trees because they're "dirty".
I would have to assume it's a class thing more than anything else. There are plenty of leafy areas in the Philly suburbs where Italians live with lush landscaping. Could also be a wasp versus non-wasp thing...i.e. the preference for types of landscaping.