depave

See also: dépavé and dépave

English

Etymology

From de- +‎ pave.

Verb

depave (third-person singular simple present depaves, present participle depaving, simple past and past participle depaved)

(transitive) To undo the act of paving; to remove pavement (especially if it is in the form of asphalt, concrete or the like) so as to restore the land to a more natural state.
- 1995 September, Susan Cohn, Green at Work, Island Press, page 223:
  Environmental programs: Depaving; auto free city centers; closure of roads...
- 1998 October, Jane Holtz Kay, Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back, University of California Press, page 356:
  Hand out a bonus for building on wasted brownfields and depaving asphalt ones; penalize building on greenfields.
- 2000 March–April, Laird Harrison, "Depaving Paradise", Audubon Magazine [1]:
  Then the town depaved part of a city street and closed another to cars.
- 2002, Jan Lundberg, "Gasoline Prices and Food: in Context", Culture Change, at www.culturechange.org [2]:
  They depaved their driveway to grow food, and they are proud to own no car, TV or refrigerator
- 2003, Richard Register, "Depaving the World", Culture Change, at www.culturechange.org [3]:
  The city has a requirement to provide off-street parking.... UA Homes had real difficulty persuading City Hall to allow us to depave about six places for a garden.
- 2006 May 28, Paul Cooley of Santa Fe, "Miscellaneous Stuff", Carfree Family, at carfreefamily.blogspot.com [4]:
  This afternoon, we started depaving the driveway to make room for another garden bed.
- 2018, Michelle Mulder, Going Wild: Helping Nature Thrive in Cities, Orca Book Publishers, →ISBN, page 26:
  Rewilding can be as complex as depaving a creek or as simple as planting a few seeds. All you need is a bit of time, curiosity, keen eyes and creativity.

Synonyms

unpave (especially if the paving is in the form of paving stones)

Translations

to remove the pavement (asphalt, etc) from (a street, etc) and return to a more natural state — see also unpave