Looking for trees in the city of them

Listen to this article

So I’m in the process of buying a house in the northern part of Mecklenburg County, and I’m looking at all the usual stuff you look for when buying a home.

What’s crime in the area like? Are the schools good? How far is it from my office, Harris Teeter, Chick-fil-A and other places I might need to go to quickly?

But there’s something else that’s suddenly playing a big role in my decision-making, something I never would have thought mattered to me when it came to buying a house.

I’m talking about trees.

I swear, I don’t remember caring this much about trees when I bought my first home down in New Orleans almost seven years ago. So, why is it mattering this much to me now?

I don’t know the exact answer, although I have some theories. What I am certain about it this: I wouldn’t have allowed some neighborhoods in our area to be built the way they were, with so few trees in them.

Maybe it’s because Charlotte is known as a city of trees and, therefore, I am subconsciously expecting every neighborhood to be chock full of them. Maybe it’s because I grew up around a lot of trees — there were woods behind my house when I was a kid, and my brother and I used to shoot our BB guns in them — and that’s what makes a neighborhood feel like a home to me.

But I think the real reason I’m gravitating toward tree-filled neighborhoods is aesthetics, pure and simple. Last month, I toured a lot of neighborhoods as I tried to find the perfect house. As I compare them, I’ve been attracted more to the ones with lots of trees.

Take Cabarrus County. There are subdivisions featuring homes for less than $150,000 and with more than enough room for a family of four. But drive through it and the subdivisions feel like a Monopoly board: lots of boxy houses scattered everywhere but no trees.  Sure, there are some trees in those newer subdivisions, but not nearly as many as in other neighborhoods I’ve toured.

I’m positive that there are more people like me, those who would prefer to live on a street lined with trees than in a subdivision that looks like it was built on the moon or in the middle of a golf course.

That developers were allowed to build communities with so few trees and landscaping is a shame.  Hopefully, laws have been changed, or will be changed, to prevent the development of communities in our area with so few trees.

I have no scientific proof of this, but I’d be willing to bet that subdivisions with lots of trees are more successful over the long term — i.e., people remain in the neighborhood and take better care of their property — than subdivisions with little to no trees.

But I won’t make that bet until after I go to closing.

Editor Deon Roberts can be reached at [email protected].