From Australia to Ontario, cities are taking up unnecessary stretches of concrete and asphalt, allowing nature to take hold in their place.
On a hot July day, Katherine Rose picked up a sturdy metal pole and jammed it under the tempting lip of a pre-cut concrete slab. Rose, communications and engagement director at Depave, a non-profit in Portland, Oregon, was sweating in the heat – but she was going to win this fight.
The grubby, rectangular section of urban crust in front of her was about to move. Pushing down on her metal bar, applying it like a lever, she eased the concrete covering up and away. Now sunlight could fall once again on the ground below. A mess of gravel and dirt that was, to Rose, just bursting with potential.

(https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240222-depaving-the-cities-replacing-concrete-with-earth-and-plants?fbclid=IwAR1xOC2kpLse0WOeNtC6eLt7dms1AjSyBum76oKeDJILFVG3QG7w9-szuH8_aem_AWsuO8VJdS4hGUWPANOyVTwzYcD3aaRdbef9nUxut7uVdHw4E30Lc0ih2wWvfepCbt4)