Tree planting, urban vacancy

[Anonymous]

Reading the WaPo article about the R's plan to plant a trillion trees, I had an idea that the DC government should condemn any properties that are less than a certain percent occupied (50%? 30%?) for more than X months, and should then just knock the buildings down and plant trees. Maybe landlords would lower the rents. and we could have some nice little locally owned restaurants and shops instead of just empty storefronts. If not, we could have some nice green space that would help cool the city down.

[Anonymous]

One problem with this idea is that the study the article was reporting on found that planting 1 trillion trees wouldn't have much effect on the climate.

I do like green space — and dislike vacant buildings — as much as the next DCUM poster, but not sure this is the way to fix our problems...