Roads in the USA use asphalt, like every other country.
However, the sidewalks don't use asphalt. Instead, they use enormous, gigantic square blocks of some kind of stone material. Where I live, the sidewalks consistently use asphalt, just like the road. (They are not on the same level, and separated by a kind of long, rectangular stone.)
Why did they go for this way in the USA? What's the benefit of using those flat square rocks instead of asphalt, specifically for the sidewalk? If they are so good, why not also use them for the road as well?
Since they already use asphalt for the road, it seems like it would be the most convenient and logical to also use asphalt for the sidewalk, but they go out of their way to (I assume) laboriously place these plates everywhere for people to walk on.
One thing I remember somebody saying in the 1990s was that he wished that the sidewalks would be like in the USA because they were better for skateboards for some reason, but I doubt that the ones in charge cared that much about skaters...