COMPULSORY TREES

A Sydney reader writes:

Miranda Devine has a column outlining some of the sillier ideas from government town planners with big ideas. They want to plant trees everywhere whether anyone wants them there or not. Sydney has become a considerably greener city in recent years mainly due to the green thumbs of it's backyard loving suburban home owners. Suburban living has never been popular with the urban intellectual elite, who like to imagine everyone living on Paris's left bank. Of course, recent studies that show children raised with backyards and pets are fitter don't worry them the way Ronald McDonald does.

Hence the latest mantra of the greens and the urban planners is that suburbia is just not environmentalist enough. Low density, we are told uses too much space and needs too many cars. But high rise is too dependent on energy and air conditioning. So now medium density "backfilling" is the answer. This is music to the ears of budget consious bureaucrats. Unfortunately it promotes crowding, traffic congestion and stresses local services. Things most normal people think of as environmental problems. Once the greens wake up to this they will recommend we live in caves.

That the whole plan is driven by Leftist envy is shown by the fact that its authors make a point of saying that they aim to use trees to block out the water views that better-off Sydneysiders love so much and pay so much for. Fortunately the plan has Buckley's chance of success. You can plant a tree but it can very easily have an "accident" some time thereafter. People are already rather free with herbicide, chainsaws etc in some places.

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