I live in a neighborhood of older homes and many, many mature trees. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons Golden Boy and I bought our house — we wanted an older home surrounded by lots of big trees for both environmental and aesthetic reasons. I can’t stand most newly constructed homes, which feel like they’re built out of cardboard and have little scrubby treelings held up with wire adorning the front yards.

Everyday now when I walk my dog, I pass by an empty lot on my block where someone plans to build a new home. And everyday I lament this scene:

As you can see from the multitude of orange tape, they plan to cut down virtually every tree on the lot — over 40 trees by my estimation. Okay, I understand that they need to clear the lot in order to get a house in there, but they don’t have to take down all the trees!

Why, why build a house in this neighborhood if you aren’t interested in having some trees? Surely that is part of the appeal — that it’s such a cool, shady, established neighborhood?

Oh, humanity, when will you learn?