The public works administration's uprooting of trees along Zhongzheng Road has been a mini-controversy for a few months. The city removed the old trees to make way for the underground construction of a new MRT train line. The city also said they were sick.

The section of the road affected by the tree removal is an area I know well. Pre-COVID, I would be there regularly. I found myself there last night for a dinner event, and it was a disorienting experience. Bare of the lovely trees, the road had been reduced to its ugly concrete roots, and stepping out of the restaurant, I could not figure out where I was or which way to go.

The new reality is both saddening and enraging at the same time. If I were a resident of the area, the removal action would have miffed me. Suddenly, my lovely neighborhood looked like any old, shabby concrete shithole in Taiwan.

I cannot help thinking that the city officials at some deep level must hate themselves to cancel out one of the success stories over the decades. Whoever planted them there (and around the city, for that matter) both beautified and preserved a bit of green in an otherwise concrete urban desert.

For decades, the "developmental" mindset of "more concrete the better" has been the practical urban planning and economic development tool. Taiwan and Taipei have spent tons of money on vanity architecture projects that were never completed or proved too complex for local firms to deliver. But these trees were a success.

A citizen’s news station <https://www.peopo.org/> produces the news report.

The news report reminds me that citizen journalism is needed more than ever all over the U.S., both as a countervailing force to corporate media and as a curative to the “QAnon”-conspiratorial lines of communication fracturing the body politic and dividing the country. Reconnecting national news to its local roots would help people understand each other and motivate them to seek truth and positive action for change. Getting officials and others to listen and respond would be the next step.

MSD