The middle of the US never was forests, or they were few and far between, they were mostly grasslands which were turned into fields, which became the dust bowl,

The middle of the US never was forests, or they were few and far between, they were mostly grasslands which were turned into fields, which became the dust bowl, etc. Where I live there are literally trees everywhere, and it doesn't take long for them to recapture an area if left abandoned a year or two. That said, I do agree we need to stop spreading out so much and start rezoning for less single family homes, at least in actual cities. It takes time sure, but we compost and recapture those nutrients every day. Every time we flush our waste down the toilet, lots of those nutrients end up being recycled and processed in a water treatment plant and dumped into rivers and used by nature. We might need to stop flushing nutrients into rivers, or figure something out, but given how much food currently gets thrown out and overstocked grocery stores stay, I know there's opportunity for adjustment. Going to a more JIT system for groceries might be better, where a grocery store doesn't need to stock 50% more produce then it plans to sell. Food waste is a huge problem. We can start composting it at least and returning it back to the soil.