How Removing Asphalt Is Softening Our Cities

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 ­Portland, Oregon, she likes the outdoors, the piney tang that hangs in the damp air.

Portland alley advocates estimate there are 76 miles of
alleys in their city—all potential green public spaces.
This northeast Portland neighborhood is one of many
projects reclaiming forgotten concrete pathways for nature and people.

But the kids’ shoes would thump on the asphalt, the pounding echoing against metal dumpsters along the alley. That was their play space. When a neighbor’s 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’s 5,000 square feet of alleyside space. They talked about a soccer field or a traditional playground—but 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.

Read the Yes! magazine story by Lynn Freehill - “How Removing Asphalt Is Softening Our Cities.”