London Plane Trees in New York – let’s hope Shanghai copies the Big Apple

Shanghai is still a city of London plane trees (Platanus x hispanica) – but not so much as it used to be. While the London planes have remained largely (but not wholly) throughout the former French Concession and in the old Western Rods Area along streets like Amherst Avenue (Xinhua Road)  a lot have been uprooted and destroyed in Hongkou recently as whole blocks of housing have been demolished -  few of the new soulless high rise clusters  feature as many trees by way of replacement.

I’ve argued before about tree preservation being akin to building preservation and the problems with old trees in Hong Kong (see here). Of course trees do also occasionally get replaced and planted. Strolling through Manhattan’s lower west side and around the West Village last week I noticed that New York is currently planting a lot of new London planes along the sidewalks – the one below is on Tenth Avenue – with small plaques at the base offering up pithy little quotes about the point of trees from the likes of, among others, Teddy Roosevelt. Not that that has stopped some arse  fromd umping a bag of trash by the tree!! but still the thought was there!!