Who Speaks For Tree?

Aside from numbered streets (like Fifth Ave.), the most popular street names are Oak, Pine, Maple, Cedar, and Elm. You know what this is leading to.

In Sacramento, (SACTOWN) there are numerous heritage trees -- both trees that existed before any development and planted trees. On SMUD property, we have two Quercus Lobata trees that might have been acorns three hundred years ago (or more). However, thousands of other heritage trees line many Sactown streets as they were planted several generations ago by 'developers' with a keen sense of the future.

Now even my little burg of Elk Grove has heritage trees...but only those in Elk Grove park (planted ~120 years ago) and any tree that stood before Elk Grove ever existed.

There will never be any more.

There won't be any more because Elk Grove planning guidelines outlaw development patterns conducive to heritage tree formation. There may well be towering canopy trees 50 years hence, but the questions are, will they be considered an integral part of Elk Grove? Will they help define communities? Would their loss result in the degradation of neighborhoods?

The answer is a resounding NO. Elk Grovian trees don't mean a thing to the occupants of this city, aside from those especially set aside in Elk Grove park, a park exclusively set away from the large format retail strip malls, high speed collector roads, and dozens of square miles of suburbanized shitbox sprawl that defines Elk Grove.

Find me one tree, planted in any 24/7 illuminated parking lot of any Best Buy, Target, or Petco that you think will one day rise to a condition that future Elk Grovians would want to preserve. Find me one. Truth is, you won't.

Find me one tree, planted on the margins or on the median of any four-lane collector roads such as Bruceville Rd., Elk Grove Blvd., or Elk Grove-Florin Rd., that you think will one day rise to a condition that future Elk Grovians would want to preserve. You won't.

Find me one tree, privately owned and planted in someone's yard, that you think might have intrinsic value to the Elk Grove public because of its size, historical association, or ecological value...sufficiently worthy to future Elk Grovians. You won't.

If they don't mean shit to us now, they will be worth less to us in the future.