What to do with the space next to house?

Construction of our house in Tokyo will be done at the end of next week and I’m starting to question if we should have opted to cement over the dirt around the house.

Our initial thought was not doing it would be cooler and maybe we could put some plants down eventually. So we went with the weed barrier and stone option. But now I’m thinking cement would be less maintenance and maybe help with insect pressure. If we do decide to cement it over, we will need to get someone to do it later, the builder won’t do it with the current construction schedule.

Any thoughts from those with experience? Is cementing it over a better option and if so, what kind of cost are we looking at?

Also, in the picture the neighbors side is newly done because they originally built the wall on our side of the property line and had to tear everything up and redo it. They just finished redoing I t today.