No matter how rich or poor the neighborhood, the sidewalks in this city are an adventure.? I am told that it is up to the owner of any particular business or residence to maintain the sidewalk in front of a building, so that accounts for a lot of it.
In a nice neighborhood, for example, there might be a beautiful brick or mosaic tile, or inlaid concrete sidewalk, very chic and stylish. But next door the owner could have a totally different idea about what his sidewalk should look like. And, if next the next door owner doesn’t feel like maintaining his sidewalk at all, it might just crumble and have a few holes or loose bricks. If you’re a pedestrian, you just deal with it.
Curbs are also interesting. Sometimes they can be over a foot high, to discourage drivers from using the sidewalks to get around trancon (traffic jams) and to keep them from turning into parking lots. I’ve seen lots of places where the sidewalks HAVE turned into parking lots when there are low enough curbs and no barriers.
If there’s a driveway into a garage or some such on a sidewalk, then there have to be metal or concrete barriers to keep drivers from using the sidewalks for traffic lanes. This means pedestrians who don’t look down constantly end up with bruised shins or worse.
Since the city is built going as far up the slope of a mountain range as it can, the sidewalks in that part of the city have various kinds of slants and steps to accomodate the topography. But with each owner able to decide how he wants his section to work, you can run into almost any sort of obstacle along the way. And when a part of a sidewalk caves in, it’s likely to stay that way for a few months or years.
So, walking on sidewalks is only for people who pay close attention. Sometimes they’re interesting, but definitely they are never to be taken for granted.
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