Asphalt is,an excellent paving surface, particularly if it is installed over concrete. Often, highways are originally constructed of a 6" or more slab of reinforced concrete. This will maintain a serviceable surface for 5 years or so (weather depending), then smaller surface flaws will grow into surface spalling and cracking. The only way to properly fix this is to saw cut out areas and jack hammer out the bad concrete, then repour new concrete. This is really expensive. You can use asphalt hot patch, but this is really shitty.  Alternatively, when the concrete surface gets bad, you can roll out a two inch top coat of bituminous concrete (Asphalt is really the black tarry stuff that holds the sand and stone aggregate together).  Since the black top is on a rigid substrate, it holds up pretty well, is patchable and can be scraped up, recycled and respread every few years. BTW, recycle is usually a blend of old and new materials in order to achieve the right properties. As to cost, asphalt based paving is less than half the cost of concrete per square foot per inch thick.