You’re kind of jumping the gun here, don’t you think, Meyer? You might want to bank that burning rage a bit - why, in just a few short months, I’m sure we’ll be seeing the “Fuck you, mow your lawn!” and the “Take out your trash, asshole!” pit threads. You wouldn’t want to burn out before then, now would you? 
If you’re letting your trash/lawn get to the point that they’re as much of a health/safety hazard as snow on the sidewalk, you’re my uncle…err, I mean, lazier than any human being has any right to be.
No, that’s usually the city’s job.
So I take it from this thread that in many areas, people very commonly use the sidewalks in front of other people’s houses?
Honestly I’m surprised by this, though I guess it makes sense now that I think about it if people are taking buses or something?
This really never would have occured to me I have to admit.
If we’re talking snow and not ice, I still don’t quite get what the big deal is. Walking in snow has never seemed to be a big problem to me.
Yes. People walk on sidewalks. This is shocking news?
Many people in cities take public transportation in lieu of paying $20 a day or more to park their cars downtown near their place of work. To reach public transportation one must walk along a sidewalk (or several).
Slogging through snow is more tiring than walking on a sidewalk. And as has already been explained, snow eventually turns into ice after enough people have walked over it (causing it to melt and then refreeze).
Fuck you, shovel your sidewalk, even if YOU drive your car everywhere. (And don’t leave one of those stupid chairs in your parking place, either).
Other people that walk on sidewalks in front of other people’s houses: People who are walking their dogs, people who are jogging or walking for exercise, people who are taking their kids for a walk, and mailmen. Also anybody who ever goes anywhere besides their own house without taking a car. I thought that this set of people was broad enough to encompass “almost everyone” but once again the Dope has shown me the error of my ways.
Why else would the sidewalk exist? Just for the homeowner to stand out there and gaze lovingly at their house?
I just…
I never really see people walking on sidewalks except in order to get to their own car in front of their own house.
Like I said, now that you mention this, I guess I can see that people would more frequently use others’ sidewalks in areas where people take buses a lot.
Of course I’ve seen joggers etc but you don’t get much of that in icy/snowy weather do you?
Yes. I just saw a woman jogging along our street yesterday. The high temp was around 20 F. Mail delivery isn’t really dependent on weather either. I believe the USPS has an entire slogan about this. 
Indeed. I can probably count on my two hands the number of times I’ve ever had occasion to walk on a neighborhood sidewalk other than that in front of my own house. Most of those occasions took place on Halloween.
So yes, seriously people, I actually was surprised to find that it’s particularly important to anyone else that the sidewalk in front of my house be snow-free. (To be clear, I don’t actually have a house. I’m just saying I was surprised to find out that’s how it would be.) Or that it’s a frequent enough occurance to lead naturally to there being a serious responsibility on my part.
Keep in mind, I was raised in a suburb in Texas where it never snows. And I was always ahem an “indoors kid”. 
Someone jogging at 20 F? But you see, why should I shovel anything for a crazy person?
Not all of us live in suburbs filled with islands of Chili’s and Olive Gardens where you don’t go two steps without getting in your car. Some of us actually seek “walkability” as a feature of our neighborhoods.
There’s also a class of people whose jobs depend on clear sidewalks and access to mailboxes and doors: USPS carriers and package carriers for other private-sector companies like UPS and FedEx. And that’s leaving aside people whose jobs or family roles probably also have them walking outside, like those who care for dogs and children.
Walking in snow is initially merely obnoxious. More dangerous is that walking on the snow compacts and melts it into a sheet of ice.
Yes, you do.
Oh Gods perish the thought whatever would my spindly white legs do under such horrific pressure? Oh please don’t expose me to such unpleasant notions again. Oh my I believe I shall faint dead away.
Snark aside, city people walk on the sidewalk everyday. I had never even seen a place without sidewalks (in this country, anyway) until I went to suburban Minnesota. I was like, “Wtf? How do people walk around?” to which my friend responded, “They don’t.” Anyway, I walk almost everywhere I go, and unshoveled sidewalks chap my hide. Funnily enough, about three days after I posted to this thread complaining about that lazy church, their sidewalk was miraculously shoveled. I think God smote them, for he looks down upon sloth.
The guy who *literally could not conceive *of anyone walking on the sidewalk doesn’t get to snark.
I literally couldn’t conceive it?
Huh. Rereading my posts I see where I clearly explained how I was able to concieve of it.
That it simply hadn’t occured to me before is by no means equivalent to an inability to even conceive of the notion.
BTW I think walkability is awesome. Your assumption that I wouldn’t was kind of bizarre. It just that in all my own experiences with neighborhoods that weren’tapartment complexes, the sidewalks were used almost solely by their owners, and the rare exceptions didn’t seen like the kind of thing I’d expect to happen in severe weather. So my experiences never led me to consider sidewalks in neighborhods occupied by individual landowners as any kind of public-ish property.
So I posted here because I figured a lot of people might not know that there are a lot of us (I assume I’m not the only one) to whom these problems simply might not have occured, for very understandable reasons.
I’d live in a walkable neighborhood if I could, and I’m sure I’d get caught up real quicklike about the kinds of problems you guys are talking about once the first winter storm set in.
I agree that someone who’s been living there for years and who never shovels their sidewalk is a disgusting pig of a horrible abortion of an abomination of a monstrously evil human being. I was just registering surprise at something that came as news to me, is all.
There may be regional things happening here as well. I’d bet that where I was raised, the normal attitude was “you’re on my property by virtue of my own courtesy, and I could kick you off with a gun at any second if I wanted to.” In other places, sidewalks may be considered more of a “we’re all in this together so let’s take care of it together” kind of thing.
I’m just musing here, though.
Every place I’ve ever lived, in three different states, the prevailing attitude was “Sidewalks are for walking on.”
I don’t know what part of Texas you’re from, but I’m glad I’ve never lived to a place where everyone acted like they were doing you a favor by allowing you to walk on the sidewalk in front of their house.