The largest sloping green roof in North America collapsed last week. Located on the Illinois warehouse of Aquascape, a garden pond construction company, the environmentally-friendly roof may have suffered under the weight of record snowfall and ice. As anyone who lives in a place with snow can attest—winter can seriously suck.

While the jury is still out on the official cause of the collapse, some people are advocating rooftop gardens—the aesthetic, yet utilitarian sibling of green roofs—to help urbanites in the Middle East improve their sustainabilty and feed themselves.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GREEN ROOF AND A ROOFTOP GARDEN?
To the layman, a green roof and a rooftop garden are one-in-the-same: A bunch of plants on a roof. However, there are differences. Green roofs cover the expanse of an entire roof to pack a harder punch for environmental benefits, most notably a reduction in heating and cooling costs.

Rooftop gardens, on the other hand, are built on smaller portions of the roof. Although there are some insulation benefits from a rooftop garden, they don’t compare to that of a green roof. Since the gardens are built on smaller plots of roof, there’s room to place some benches or even a blanket to enjoy the garden and soak up some sunshine.

ROOFTOP GARDENS AND THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT
The Middle East has had an exciting few weeks; now’s the time for rebuilding and urban development in Egypt and other parts of the region and North Africa. Arwa Aburawa writes on the Green Prophetblog that the flat roofs of the Middle East are perfect for rooftop gardens, which can help families feed themselves, decrease air pollution, reduce energy consumption and provide habitat for birds and insects.

The sustainability of cities is a hot topic in the environmental community; many greenies say that cities can never be sustainable, while others argue that cities are the epitome of sustainability due to their smaller overall footprint. While the debate rages on, the idea of rooftop gardens in urban areas seem to answer one of the major flaws of the urban environment—the inability to feed oneself and the family. With food security and scarcity on the lips of many in these areas, having a patch of earth of one’s own in which to grow food seems like a practical way to combat hunger.