When I first heard about Baltimore’s new Urban Forest Project - set to begin in a few days - I was excited. Cool, I though, they’re going to cultivate wild spaces in the city. Concrete jungle replaced by actual jungle - what could be better? But that’s not the case at all; that’s just my imagination running wild. What’s actually happening is a lot less exciting…
Instead of a bunch of trees being planted, 350 artsy banners are being put up for a few weeks around the city with pictures of trees on them… This is a similar tactic the city has undertaken with its new emphasis on “bike lanes”. They aren’t really bike lanes at all, so much as they are regular roads with no shoulder which just happen to have an iconographic picture of a bike painted on them.
I guess it’s cool that “awareness is being raised” or whatever though. And the Urban Forest art project actually is intended to support a City of Baltimore initiative called “TreeBaltimore,” which is “a part of the Mayor’s Greener Baltimore initiative that seeks to double Baltimore’s tree canopy from 20 percent to 40 percent within 30 years.” So, if you want to see real trees, you have to wait thirty years for them. Or you can zip around on all of Baltimore’s new “bike lanes” this weekend and look at pictures of trees instead. One step at a time, I guess.
Or you could just go out and plant some damned trees and food while nobody’s looking…
{Also check out the Maryland Association for Environmental & Outdoor Education}
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6 Comments
I have to mention this. If you’re riding your bike in the street wear a helmet. I used to ride my bike without one when there was no bike initiative and I’m amazed I survived. So far I’ve seen three bike riders laying in the street, two were bike messengers and one was just riding, with blood pouring form their heads. Whoever hit them didn’t even know they had hit someone.
Nothing ever really gets done unless someone can make a buck doing it. Government programs are on the wane, soon corporations will be responsible for everyones well being. Its already happening.
http://www.klminc.com/ethics/new-market-state.html
Right, and it seems like this initiative described above is a transparent part of Baltimore’s plan to remake its image in order to drive upper middle class ‘new money’ into the area.
Seriously Tim, you might have some luck getting a big corporation to plant the trees. A corporation looking for a better Non financial performance measurement
Seriously Tim, you might have some luck getting a big corporation to plant the trees. A corporation looking for a better Non financial performance measurement