Driving around Richmond one can see pretty quickly the lines drawn around zones of wealth and poverty in the maintenance of landscaping in the various neighborhoods. Recognizing that fact about twenty five years ago, the City of Portland, Oregon established a city wide landscaping plan. This wasn’t just a replacement of street shading trees (which we don’t yet have) it drew from the finest landscape architecture theory and practice and through design implemented a neighborhood based - city wide plan. This plan implemented ideas of seasonal color change, shading, spring flowering color, neighborhood identity, the possible delights of walking paths and maintenance objectives. Trees were planted on an equity basis,(based on present distribution and need) in all neighborhoods. We had lovely flowering Cherry Trees put in by the City in front of our house and a different tree on a intersecting street where the plan called for a species taller and with a contrasting leaf and flower color. Over the years, this has revealed the truth in what world famous landscape architect and planner Lawrence Halprin said separated the mean form pleasant urban landscapes, "the presence of trees - nature". Wayne County and the White River Valley used to be an oasis of green to the western bound traveler entering into Richmond from National Road or I70 from the farming plain of west central Ohio. Now, of coarse, we have Tom Rapper’s immense need for self promotion representing the city’s greeting and displacing hundreds of yards of forested highway sideage. Our neighborhoods, once shaded and grand under Elm, Maple and Oak are often now skeletal and discontinuous avenues of older aging decaying trunks and long spaces where former growth has been removed without tree replacements.
Let’s re-invest in the QUALITY of public streets by encouraging our leaders to begin the process toward a "Richmond Green" once again.
This is an absolutely wonderful idea!!! Promoting green space in Richmond would not only affect the visual quality of Richmond's streets, but might also have a positive effect on community life in Richmond. As well, it would have a positive impact on the environment.