This is a typical street scene in the French Concession area of Shanghai, China. All the Plane Trees are reminiscent of French cities - but we have a few streets like it in Auckland - such as Vincent and Franklin Streets. There are quite a few more streets in Auckland that are lined with Pohutakawa Trees....
Taking a closer look at the Shanghai Street scene is interesting though. Here I've zoomed in a bit... you can see a street light standard now... and you can see how the Plane Trees have been pruned...
Zooming in a bit more, you can also see a large pole in the streetscape. In fact it's a power pole. I hadn't really noticed it in a casual view (check yourself in the photo at the top of this blog - you can't see the power pole for the trees....)
I've included this picture so you can see the cables that are carried by that power pole. I imagine they are 440 volt cables - a bit like those in NZ. Power is supplied in cities in China at 220 volts AC.
This is another similar Shanghai streetscape. Look again at the power poles. You will see that the poles are painted in colours to blend in with the Plane trees - the lower sections of the poles are the same colour - generally - as the green of the trunks of the Plane trees - while the upper sections of the power poles colour match the different green of the main branches of the Plane trees.
...to better demonstrate this, I have cut out from the above picture, the power pole infrastructure. Somehow - while the Plane trees have been pruned to provide air space for the power cables, the type of pruning, combined with the careful camouflage colour scheme demonstrates a very good solution to the problem we have in Auckland and which is rather crassly addressed by the lines companies responsible for tree maintenance in our tree lined streets.
Here's another shot....
...and another... I know, I know. All you can see now are the power poles. But you didn't notice them till I drew your attention to them - did you.
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