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Originally Posted by Yuri
I was map googling Dallas and to me the northern section of their loop seems completely useless: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7852...8057323,14.58z . They've buried part of it, but if they completely get rid of it, it doesn't look like it would have a major impact.
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Actually, Dallas has a proposal to remove I-345 between downtown and Deep Ellum. If they did that, then they would need to keep the Woodall Rodgers.
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburne...ng-down-i-345/
Houston is planning to remove the Pierce Elevated that separates downtown from the Midtown and Montrose areas, but the other two sides of the loop would be doubled in width. notably the west side of downtown is where the rich folks live, so they would see a freeway removal while the poorer north and east sides of downtown would see an even larger barrier erected.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pedestrian
But the ceaseless wind still makes the life of most tree species precarious, especially the London Plane Tree (sycamore) that city planners for some reason favor. They plant them all over town and most look unhealthy if not frankly dead. Palms seem to do OK but are expensive and aren't exactly shade trees.
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Plane trees are really the best urban trees if you can make them work. Big leaves provide lots of shade and dappled sunlight, the white mottled bark is beautiful. They tend to grow straight and at a consistent rate, and the roots don't mess up the pavements. They've been a staple of European landscape design for basically centuries.
The regular varieties of plane tree don't really work in Chicago unfortunately, the hard frosts can damage the bark and they don't like clay soils but there are some new varieties out there that are supposed to be better.
It's weird, for Northern California I always think of eucalyptus and not plane trees. I know Californians hate eucalyptus, but they're really quite beautiful and distinctive in the urban landscape.