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Comment by falcolas | Hacker News Reader

I'd rather they put in an indigenous meadow. Trees are awesome, but so are open green spaces that maintain themselves.

A lot of places would benefit from more housing, too, or new business, or almost anything really. A parking lot is about the worst option possible.

We look at a large section of a land and decide that we will destroy all life on it, pave over it with asphalt (so that even the rain cannot drain into the soil), all so that large vehicles can sit there unused. It really is the lowest opinion one can have on a piece of Earth.

Most surface lots you see in a city are placeholders until the owner finds a project that pencils out. Why not charge people to park there until you are ready to build that new highrise?

From an "I own this land and want to make the most money off of it" standpoint that makes sense.

From an "I live here and want my community to be enjoyable and beautiful" standpoint it makes less sense.

What herbivores are you going to deploy to allow the meadow to maintain itself? Going to fence them in or let them run wild in town?

In 99%+ of east coast US environments, grassland will become forest naturally (over time), even with the deer population as it is.

I had big meadows in front and back of my house when I moved in 25 years ago. I let about the 50-100 feet out by the road naturalize over time; the rest is cut by a tractor about once a year. The section out by the road is forest, albeit immature, at this point.

There's far more forest in New England than there was 150 years or so ago.

Why not do controlled burns? That's historically how most grasslands and meadows that didn't support large grazing populations stayed that way.

Why not both? Trees in the manner they're describing where it's just helping the forested area expand back out doesn't require human involvement either.

The selfish human reason to want trees as a natural heat regulator is I think alone worth the benefit in areas with lots of asphalt where people will be near.

Cities are hot. Cities with lots of mature trees providing shade on the sidewalks make it a lot more bearable.

Merely eliminating a lot of the black heat sinks (i.e. parking lots) and replacing them with native grasses would do a lot to help keep city temperatures a touch more reasonable.

Asphalt both absorbs and radiates heat like mad.

If the trees are native to the area, sure. But a tree monoculture doesn't seem to do a lot of good.

Serious question: Why not plant trees & shrubs & grasses in parking lots? (as in, in containers or medians). Shade the parking lot and make it less hot. Make it prettier to park in and attract birds & other wildlife. You could even charge people for the privilege of parking somewhere nice for a change.

Meadows or trees would be nice, but I've noticed that underused parking lots tend to be common places to build restaurants and other retail. Not as great as trees or meadows but on the other hand I'd rather the new retail goes on parking lots rather than replacing currently existing trees & meadows.

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