It’s maybe a good rule of thumb, but as I’m just outside of Helsinki for a while now, I’ve just realized what’s the difference between here and everywhere in central and south Europe: the trees are large and old. Even if there are trees in Vienna, Budapest, Brussels etc they are small, and very young compared to here. Even in the greener small Belgian villages, they are not that green than here, just outside of Helsinki’s city center.
And here, somehow, that stupid excuse that they destroy utility cables and pipes didn’t cause to cut them out. It seems that it’s possible to solve this.
And of course, I’m basically in a forest. There are trees everywhere. The “park” here is an at least 100 years old forest. There is one about 30 meters from here, and about 500 meters an even larger one, where I’ve just lost today.
Of course, the city center is different, but even comparing the outskirts of other cities, this is very-very green.
Depends on what part of Budapest. One of the reasons people like Zugló (14th district) is the many trees. And farther out it's even better, of course.
But a lot of the trees in Hungary just don't grow that big, maybe the most marked difference when I first saw it after growing up in Indiana. When we lived in the 16th district of Budapest, there was one neighborhood I used to walk the dog in that had these massive old American sycamores. Those things were beautiful.
Since my current permanent address is exactly in that district, and I lived most of my life near Ors: no, it’s not comparable. Zuglo is nowhere near what’s here.
And also, many would grow that big. They are just not allowed. They are cut almost to trunk periodically over there. There are a few trees there which were as high as those 10 floor high rises, but they cut them down or even out, because somehow it’s dangerous there what’s completely fine in Finland.
As they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 (or 200) years ago…