How to revitalize the concrete jungle in Seoul

I remember that recently many in LJ were outraged by the reconstruction of Tverskaya Street in Moscow, criticizing, among other things, the idea of planting linden trees along the roadway. Like, trees take away vital space from both motorists and pedestrians.

Meanwhile, everyone has long forgotten that the living space of the inhabitants of megalopolises a long time ago was taken away not just by trees, but by the jungle of glass and concrete, as a result of which there is less and less greenery in cities. Many cities in the world have already encountered this problem and, having realized it, are now forced to return the earth in crumbs to plants so that people can somehow breathe.

In Asian cities, this is especially noticeable: at first, all the greens were ruthlessly destroyed by rolling entire blocks into the asphalt and building skyscrapers one on top of the other, and now bushes, grass and trees are planted on every free centimeter of land. But this is all catastrophically insufficient, so many people plant trees in Seoul ... even on the roofs of their houses, break lawns there and plant live bushes.

In Seoul, residents have long been opposed to reconstruction and are happy to share sidewalks and extra centimeters of road for planting an alley of pines or creating remote flower beds with grass and flowers.

I think that someday we will come to this, having realized that streets without greenery become cold and lifeless.

If you climb any roof in Seoul and look around, you will notice that trees and bushes grow everywhere on the roofs of houses or the lawn is simply broken there. These are not abandonments for which no one cares, as it may seem. Trees, shrubs and grass are planted here intentionally. At the same time, land for planting far beyond the city is very expensive, it is imported and raised to the roofs of houses.

Trees grow both on the roofs of residential buildings or on the upper floors, where they are planted by the owners of the buildings themselves, and on almost all office skyscrapers. As a rule, these are recreation areas for office employees, mini-parks on the roof or restaurants.

In fact, if you arm yourself with a telephoto and walk carefully on the roofs, it becomes noticeable that almost all of them are equipped and landscaped. And really, why disappear precious square meters?

Mini park.

Another park on the roof of a residential high-rise.

Just grass and a walkway.

Such dense greens in the center of the Asian metropolis are luxury. But this is not a park, this is a canal shore. In another city there would be nothing but concrete slopes of the channel "for aesthetics". In Seoul, on the contrary, they allowed the banks of the canal to grow abundantly. True, the vegetation is cared for and prevented from turning this place into impenetrable thickets.

Here, literally, they are shaking over every tree or bush.

Wherever there is even a little bit of land, grass, bushes and seedlings of trees are planted. And everywhere everything looks very well-groomed.

Not all streets in the city center can boast of such abundant greenery. The cost per square meter in residential buildings on such streets is very different from houses on streets without trees.

Like Tverskaya, Seoul also has to conquer the area a bit from concrete and granite pavements.

Where this has not yet been done, the plants are planted in temporary portable containers.

True, the trees were planted more cleverly, without strange granite pedestals.

Interestingly, in Seoul, conifers dominate the streets over deciduous trees. The reason is simple: much less effort is required for harvesting in the fall. And in winter the streets look nicer with greenery than with bare, gray branches of deciduous trees.