La beauté essentielle des allées d’arbres – Carcassonne (France)
The essential beauty of tree avenues
All over the world, “forgiving road side” road-safety policies are a major obstacle to the preservation and planting of roadside trees. In practice, planting further away from the edge of the road is rarely feasible. It is also inconsistent with the conventional geometric characteristics of tree avenues, which are a stong ingredient of their cultural nature and of their aesthetics.
But does road safety really depend on there being no trees close to the road? Is the guarantee of physical integrity enough to make life worth living? Does not physiological existence, our physical health, our mental wellbeing, and our social wellbeing also depend on trees? Is beauty not also as indispensable a factor for living or rebuilding oneself, for putting some magic into the world and drawing society into crucial projects?