Spring, finally

It was such a long winter; it didn't seem like it would ever end. In so many recent years, the trees began blooming in February, the azaleas in March, and by April, it seemed to be summer. Not this year, though. The redbuds and tulip trees were first, maybe two weeks ago, followed by the cherry trees and Bradford pears. Last Sunday, walking to church, I noticed that the dogwood blossums were just starting to emerge but the trees - Bradford pears and everything else - really didn't have leaves. By Monday, they did. It was quite amazing, how suddenly everything started to be green. Even our ginkgo tree - which always seems to be the last tree on the block to break into leaf - is starting to get leaves.

At the sale a couple of weeks ago, I bought an apple tree from the Virginia Highlands group that is raising money to build a new park at Highland and St. Charles. It was bare root, and I didn't have time to plant it that day, so I wrapped the roots in a wet towel and left it on the driveway. It was cool and wet that day, so it seemed like it would probably be okay til I could get it in the ground, assuming it wasn't too long.

Iain and I planted it the next day. We dug a hole-that-seemed-to-be-bigger-than-it-needed-to-be in the back yard and mixed in some compost from the old site of the compost bin. (The new site has yet to yield compost, as it has been too cold for that particular magic to happen. Mostly we have a large quantity of garbage and paper, waiting for the weather to warm up.) We got the tree in the ground, and then we waited.

We may have to wait a couple years for apples, but like almost all the other trees, this is the week that our little apple tree broke alive with green leaves. Every day when I get home from work I go outside and look for new evidence of life, and there is a little more to see.

There also are stirrings on other fronts, after a long cold winter. Some of the vacant retail space in the neighborhood and beyond is starting to get occupied, store front by store front. The opening of a new discount furniture store at the site of the old Home Depot on Sidney Marcus completely filled the parking lot, and there's also a new furniture store at the former site of the pet supply store on Piedmont in the strip mall that was emptied Before the Crash to make way for something that to date has not been built.

Of course, one has to wonder how long it will take to absorb all the apartments and condos that Someone thought needed to be built in town. I drive by them and I see the buildings, mostly empty but with a few units looking occupied. (I was on my way to pick up Sarah at school and she called and asked where I was. Not far, I said, driving by the empty apartments on Piedmont. She asked, which ones?) Lights on timers and rented furniture, just so the place won't look so dismal, or are there really a few people living in these mostly empty buildings? What would it be like, living in a place meant for high density with no one there?

I have been slowly savoring Jane Jacobs' classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. She makes a powerful case for it being lots of people that make a city feel safe. At night, if there are people on the sidewalk and lots of coming and going from bars and theaters and restaurants and people just getting off the evening shift or on their way to the night shift, the neighborhood will feel safe, but the same street, without the people, won't. Green space for the most part does not contribute to safety because at night it becomes a sort of urban no fly zone that doesn't attract any people; there's no reason to be there, and and because of that, it doesn't feel safe. For an urban environment to feel safe, you need lots of people coming and going into the night - and you don't have that without high density and diversity of use. Diversity of use is facilitated by having diversity of building stock - old buildings with interesting spaces can provide inexpensive commercial space for galleries and small restaurants and interesting little shops. If there are too many new buildings, rents are too high for anything interesting and there is no reason for people to be there who don't have to be.

So we now have all these - mostly empty - work/live developments, with really boring-looking retail space (a lot of which is empty) and all those empty apartments and condos. I am so glad to see signs of life in the economy - like the leaves on the trees outside, it is so welcome after a really long winter - but you just have to wonder what's going to happen to all these developments. It wouldn't be so bad, having these large, boring structures around if they were actually full of people who might provide the population density to support something interesting, but they aren't. Without people?

At least if they were green space they would soak up some CO2.