Green Leaf Report

About five years ago, a real estate agent told me about a friend of his; this friend had recently declared bankruptcy and then, one week later, had been approved for a mortgage. The point, at the time, was that anyone could qualify for a mortgage. The many under-qualified buyers created exuberant demand for homes that developers rushed in to satisfy. Prices were bid up in hot markets, speculators came in, perfectly nice older homes were razed to slap up bigger, better, larger, newer homes at four to five times the price of the nice little home that had been in the way. The trend towards McMansions has been repeatedly vilified in the press in cities across America: that big house towering next door can change the feel of a neighborhood, look like an architectural mish-mash, and use wasteful amounts of energy. The hidden problem in this trend was the loss of so many old growth trees from the redeveloped lots. Eighty-five percent of our urban forest is on private property; when these many private lots have the little houses torn down, and surrounding trees cut to clear the lot to make room for an oversized home, large swaths of the urban forest are lost. Another maddening, weak economic argument is used for rampant environmental destruction, to argue against any government intervention to save these trees:

"You have to be careful when you’re talking about regulations because they can get out of hand," said builder Joe Cain. "No one wants their tax base to go up because redevelopment is slowed down."

So the trees get cut down to put a few more bucks in someone’s pocket. Even all of the voluntary LEED sort of building suggestions can’t stop the mismanagement of large swaths of private property. We can ask nicely, we can fuss at the men wielding chainsaws, we can even levy little fines. Ultimately, though, I  hope the market destroys this practice.

We’re now seeing the fallout from the folly of the inane lending practices of so many banks: swings in international stock markets, fields of McMansions, foreclosures and missing trees. The correction will be complete when more builders have to stop the rampant destruction of neighborhoods, trees, fields and good taste.