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Comment by thrower123 | Hacker News Reader

Hard to expect anything different. The amount of salt that they get exposed to is horrifying, at least in places that experience cold temperatures and go nuts with the calcium chloride to melt off every speck of snow and ice.

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Trees benefit from being around other trees, for example by passing nutrients through their root systems, signalling chemically to warn of threats, sharing beneficial fungi, and being shielded from the elements. It's definitely no surprise that urban trees don't fare as well.

There are some benefits for street trees that the article points out, including less competition for light, more CO2, more nitrogen deposition, a longer growing season, and the opportunity to tap water/sewer lines.

> the opportunity to tap water/sewer lines

Does this involve breaking pipes? How exactly is it beneficial?

It's beneficial to the tree.

Until they do it too much and get cut down for it, anyway.

A majority of instances won't involve breaking a line, although that certainly does happen. The typical case is that they'll thrive off of damp soil around pipes with small existing leaks and leach off that for hydration.

Between the salt and the dog urine, hard to believe they survive at all.

Urine is just an aqueous solution containing urea (CH4N2O) and you need nitrogen in the ground since it is absorbed by plants and trees as nitrates. Nitrates are usually lacking in the ground so it's actually beneficial for the trees in the end.

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/environment/the-nitro...

Nearly all the trees and bushes on my street need barriers around them. The ones that don't will get peed on so much that the plant dies (or all greenery below a certain height will chemically burn).

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