Developing trees

One key difference between my home state, California, and my new state of residence, Ohio, is the use of land.

In California, where most city councils and county boards of supervisors are heavily influenced by (alternate wording here: owned by) land developers, every square foot that can be processed into a residential area has been or shortly will be. Even flood basins become residential or commercial areas named River Park or something similar.

Farm land? Not for long if some developer wants it.



A walking path in an Akron, Ohio park.

That is less true in Ohio. The Akron area has parks: Glorious, tree-lined parks with miles of shaded walking paths and ball fields. People walk or jog along the paths each day. You see softball or even cricket players swacking at pitched spheroids on the fields.

Yes, spheroids.

In California, land developers tell the appropriate government agency that each proposed residential area will have room for a park and a school. The drawings of the proposals show the fields where children will play and buildings where the growing geniuses will learn, all paid for by the kindly developers. But the reality is that no parks are ever built and the school districts end up buying land somewhere else, at high prices, to cope with the new families now jammed into the district’s attendance area.

The appropriate governmental council/board members fall all over each other in the rush to accept the proposals and whatever might come with them.

There seems to be less of that here in Ohio. The quality of life seems to be more important than the contest between towns and counties to see how many new homes can be jammed in each year.

Akron’s park walking paths have exercise stations for those who feel just walking isn’t enough: Chin ups, vaulting, stepping stumps and the like. The trees provide shade for the walkers and joggers while chipmunks and squirrels make good company. The diamonds provide the basics for the bases. Photographers have lots of opportunities.

Have we moved to Shangri-la? No, of course not. Winter brings snow here, lots of snow. The leaves leave the trees. The ball fields get iced over. The walking paths become less accessible.

But the trees are not cut down in favor of more residences, either, and that’s a good thing.

 

Thanks for reading.