Are these trees about to die?

 I'm told they might be ill and due to be cut down soonish:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3035/2512191676_c688245b50_b.jpg

What do you think?

 Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward said:

They look like my neighbor's spruce which has only gotton worse
and worse every year.  Now it looks to have spread to his other
spruce.  The tree started going downhill soon after our street was
paved.

(His are badly placed trees to begin with, huge, in a small front
yard, with power lines in front of them.  I'm sure the cost of
removing them would be too much for him, as a retiree.)

Something similar happened to the spruce trees at the local
elementary school when they expanded the nearby parking lot.

May I hazard a guess that that nice blacktop running along
the line of trees was fairly recently done?

--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)
  
After enlightenment, the laundry.

 
Yes, I'm guessing that blacktop is no more than two years old.

This is on a property I'm interested in buying and those trees are a
big part of its appeal.

 
I think you've put your finger on it - here's an article I just found
describing exactly what you're talking about, and it seems to be the
case with these trees:

http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/lpro022/lpro022.htm

 On May 24, 8:36�pm, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward

The pavement was installed long after those trees were -planted and is
preventing water and air from reaching the roots...  you can see where
the lower branches were removed and where the construction machinery
has scarred the bark.  Those trees are slowly dying, they should be
removed before they fall.