winter storm damage on the urban landscape

On my random walks through the city over the last couple of weeks of snow, ice and rain, I've come across many landscape trees that have suffered mightily. The most common thing I've seen are larger deodar cedars that were topped sometime in the past. Once a tree like that is topped (usually in a futile attempt to keep a large tree small), the top side branches compete to become the tree's new leader. As these side branches grow over the years, they become too large and heavy to support a heavy snow load, and eventually break off in a most unsightly way. Too bad for the tree, and the homeowner who now has a big mess to clean up and a big empty spot in the landscape. Good news for the garden centers who can sell you a new tree, and good news for the homeowner because nurseries have been working overtime to produce and bring to the market smaller trees for the smaller urban gardens.