Parking Lot Shade

Many cities require trees to shade parking lots, but very often the trees are pruned very aggressively so they never have their intended effect. (This is known as "topping.")Trees are over pruned for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the trees are seen as an obstruction to business signs or they are considered a legal liability so they must be pruned back to eliminate any possibility of a branch breaking off. This picture shows shade trees that have been pruned to remove the branches at the lower part of the tree while maintaining the shade canopy. Notice how the entrance to the store is still visible to customers. They could also solve the problem of business visibility by pushing the store to the edge of the sidewalk and placing the parking behind it as was done with the grocery store across the street. 

Do you care if there is shade in a parking lot? Do you look for shaded parking spaces?