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Rachel Schutz hated watching the kids play outside, and not because she was a curmudgeon. As director of an after-school program in a Latino neighborhood near 颅Portland, Oregon, she likes the outdoors, the piney tang that hangs in the damp air.

But the kids鈥� shoes would thump on the asphalt, the pounding echoing against metal dumpsters along the alley. That was their play space. When a neighbor鈥檚 pine tree shed its needles, she watched the kids sweep them together and build them into a nest or fort. Otherwise, they were limited to games with chalk or a ball hoop.

The kids wanted something different for the Inukai Family Boys and Girls Club鈥檚 5,000 square feet of alleyside space. They talked about a soccer field or a traditional playground鈥攂ut surprised Schutz by choosing a nature park. They imagined dirt, logs, and boulders to climb on, raised beds to grow flowers and veggies, and hundreds of trees and plants throughout.

Schutz just had to figure out how to remove the pavement.

Doing so introduced her to a soften-our-cities movement in which cities such as Nashville, Tennessee, Montreal, and Detroit are rethinking all that cement. Alleys and alleysides in particular are being effectively reimagined as people-friendly pathways, parks, and lushly planted urban habitat.

Schutz and the kids she serves understand why the idea has been spreading. The day before they strong-armed the asphalt up, one girl asked her, 鈥淢iss Rachel, does this mean we get real grass we can touch?鈥�

Some things about alleys

Practically every city鈥檚 got alleys, passageways behind or between buildings or homes. They can be wide or narrow, pedestrian-only or open to vehicles. They date back to medieval times in many world cities, where some still host commerce and neighborhood gatherings and others stay hushed.

U.S. city planners purposefully laid dirt alleys to accommodate horses and carriages. Garbage pickup was done there (and still is today). Alleys were improvised living areas, notably for immigrants and newly freed slaves鈥攖here鈥檚 an especially strong where 300,000 people took refuge after the Civil War, according to author Grady Clay in Alleys: A Hidden Resource.

But post-World War II, Americans wanted their large cars parked out front, visible tokens of affluence. By the 1960s, The Community Builder鈥檚 Handbook pronounced alleys obsolete: 鈥渙ne of the advances which has been made in land planning during the motor age.鈥� Paving was considered progress, even as it . And now, as climate change brings record rains, pavement is contributing to toxic stormwater runoff and dangerous flooding. Asphalt drew cars deeper into the city and reduced urban community gathering spots. Lack of dirt cut down on a neighborhood鈥檚 trees, plants, and animal habitat.

Studies show access to nature is associated with good health鈥攂ut it also correlates with wealth. The families with large front yards and backyards and lush neighborhood parks are wealthier. Less-expensive homes, multifamily structures, and dense housing often sit next to asphalt alleyways. These residents share their outdoor space with traffic and trash bins and can鈥檛 easily grow food or relax in the shade of trees.

In a published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, a team of researchers found also that this is true for neighborhoods with greater concentrations of Black or Hispanic people, who 鈥渓ack health-promoting and activity-inviting environmental resources.鈥�

That was certainly the case for the Inukai Family Boys and Girls Club, in a predominantly Latino neighborhood where residents had to trek a full mile to the nearest park.

Recently, cities have been rethinking their hard alleys. Montreal has an official encompassing more than 250 back routes that have been turned into gardens, play spaces, and neighborhood gathering spots. And in Detroit, a green-business incubator and a brewery teamed up to do a with absorbent pavers and native plants. It went so well, the neighborhood treats the area like a minipark鈥攑eople even take formal photos there.

Softening the cities

Reclaiming paved spaces like alleys sometimes means just planting gardens along the edges of the concrete. Other times, it means ripping out asphalt entirely.

The official depave movement began with a single Portland lot in 2007. A man named Arif Khan moved into a house whose backyard was completely paved over, but Khan wanted a garden. He and some friends discussed how to go about it, then hit on the idea of just taking it out by hand themselves. Ted Labbe was one of those friends, and he still serves on the board of what is now Depave Portland.

Over the past decade, the nonprofit has inspired other Depave organizations around the U.S., plus in Canada and the United Kingdom.

The original chapter has now done more than 125 depavings, according to Labbe, most recently the Inukai Family Boys and Girls Club in October. Following what has become its playbook, Depave helped raise $38,000 for the project and secured the proper permits. The asphalt was scored into square 鈥渂rownies鈥� the day before. Around 100 people fueled up with donated coffee, juice, and bananas, and as speakers blared Latin pop, pried up the asphalt with huge crowbars. They flipped the squares over, broke them up, and wheeled the chunks to dumpsters.

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The Boys and Girls Club sought out a local artist, Arturo Villase帽or, to paint a mural on the building wall along the area. Villase帽or was surprised when people started walking along the alley and snapping pictures as he worked. The lot is still dirt and waiting for plantings, but he believes the green space will serve as a combination community plaza and garden.

鈥淭here is a tradition, especially in Latin American cities, of a plaza with maybe a gazebo. It鈥檚 important for the community,鈥� he says.

Reducing flooding

The idea of returning alleys to nature has taken hold in Nashville. Record flooding in 2010 made the city reevaluate its use of alleys and adjacent paved spaces. The to plant rain gardens along 150 alleys to help absorb increasing stormwater.

Along an alley on a humid Tennessee summer day, Compact鈥檚 program manager, Will Caplenor, gave a tour, showing off coneflower and echinacea as carpenter bees circled for a landing. Nearby, a resident walked a dog.

鈥淗ere locally there鈥檚 a big endeavor to make our streets more complete, to make our streets more walkable, bikeable, livable,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no reason alleys can鈥檛 be part of that, can鈥檛 be part of your walkable thoroughfares in your neighborhoods.鈥�

The nonprofit has undertaken some depaving. Caplenor traveled to Portland to learn from the Depave team there before launching Depave Nashville. Both Nashville鈥檚 green alleys and adjacent depaved spaces 鈥渁re accomplishing the same goals,鈥� Caplenor says. 鈥淏eyond stormwater capturing, I see wildlife habitat and aesthetic sense of place [for people] as the real benefits.鈥�

The Cumberland River Compact completed its first depaving with the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation, which had a parking lot on top of a hill that caused flooding problems. Nathanael Reveal, the church鈥檚 board president, also wanted churchgoers and neighborhood residents to feel more connected to the natural world. And so, on a hot Saturday, 40 volunteers ripped out 150,000 pounds of asphalt.

At the end of the sweaty day, Reveal was walking across the freshly exposed dirt with an 8-year-old student when they saw a butterfly touch down. 鈥淲e鈥檇 both been through that space hundreds of times and never seen anything like that. That was a profound moment,鈥� Reveal says.

鈥淲e thought, It鈥檚 already starting. Nature is already showing up and getting back to work.鈥�

Country lanes in the city

Researchers agree that green alleys are good for both nature and community.

Michael Martin, a landscape architecture professor at Iowa State University, began studying 鈥渟oft鈥� alleys nearly three decades ago. Observing the unpaved back routes of the cities where he had lived鈥擡ugene, Oregon, and Ames, Iowa鈥攇ave him rich research material. He found he could ramble along them like country lanes. A soft alley might be 11 feet wide but usually had a soil edge of several more feet along the pavement. That strip of earth could host both wild and cultivated plants, from buckthorn to blackberry bushes.

There are downsides to raw back alleys, to be sure.

Susan Jasper, Martin鈥檚 neighbor in Ames, plants hostas on the fence along hers, but they鈥檙e often run over by neighbors. Dust and potholes annoy her, too. Still, 鈥淲hen I go for walks, I choose to go down alleys,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey are fun and offer behind-the-scenes looks at life.鈥�

Martin agrees, calling them 鈥渁n important cultural landscape resource.鈥� Kids tend to play and adults socialize and plant gardens along them. 鈥淚t provides a connection with people of your block 鈥� a really interesting mix of culture and nature.鈥�

Back in Portland, Schutz says she can鈥檛 wait to watch the Boys and Girls Club kids play outside in their new alleyside space, even digging in the dirt. 鈥淚t鈥檚 healing, and they鈥檒l go on in their lives to want to engage with nature.鈥�

The project, she says, is 鈥渢he most incredible thing I鈥檝e ever been a part of.鈥�

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Lynn Freehill-Maye writes about sustainability and related topics from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, CityLab, Civil Eats, and Sierra, among other publications.

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