No, I am in socialist (or possibly, communist) Canada. 
But the sidewalk clearing practice is far from universal and is mostly well established around the Montreal and Toronto metropolitan areas and outlying burbs.
Yes I am in western Pennsylvania.
We also have to maintain the sidewalks in front of the house and keep the grass cut in the area between the street and sidewalk.
Weirdly, I was in Canada yesterday. Did not pay attention to the residential sidewalks, however.
mmm
The grass strip is understandable. I have to maintain that, too. It makes perfect sense as you have to cut your lawn anyway and that extra little bit is trivial, but would be a big hassle and expense to the municipality to go around doing it everywhere. Besides, the whole reason that you mow your lawn is to make your property look nice, and that section of grass is part of it. When feeling ambitious, I even water and fertilize it.
But snow clearing is completely different. There are a couple of schools near here and school kids constantly trudging to and from school along the sidewalk. To my mind, it makes far more sense for the municipality to send one of their specialized little sidewalk plows trundling along clearing the sidewalk after a snowfall so the kiddies can get to school, rather than threatening homeowners with hell and damnation and fines if they don’t do it themselves.
It presents a special problem if you’re elderly, like I am. I have a snowplowing service to keep the driveway clear, but nothing else. For an extra fee Snowplow Guy will also shovel out the front steps and porch, but there’s obviously no provision for doing the sidewalk since it’s not necessary. But if it was, because the city didn’t do it, it would probably be quite expensive if he was willing to do it at all. I don’t think it would be feasible for his plow truck to do it, so he’d have to do it by hand. The sidewalk plows are specialized little tractor-like vehicles with V-shaped little plows just the width of the sidewalk.
It’s an easement to private property. Around here, the property owner is responsible for sidewalk maintenance, including shoveling & repairs, when necessary, like when a tree’s roots push up a section of cement sidewalk & make it a tripping hazard.
The only sidewalk the town is responsible for is town property, like in front of the park. Even the schools are a separate political entity & therefore responsible for sidewalks in front of the schools.
Residential plowing usually is a team of two or three. One plow operator & the other(s) to run the snowblower on the sidewalk / path to the house & manually shovel any steps; all included in one price.
Why are these rants in MPSIMS instead of the Pit? Hmmm, mini-ranting about mini-rants!
Why? 'Cuz the OP (me) is an idiot. That’s why.
I’m reporting it for a category change right now. So soon it will be rehomed where it belongs.
Curious how it works with rental properties. Does the responsibility trickle down to the tenant in your area?
Wow! So the homeowner is not only responsible for clearing snow from a public sidewalk, but also for repairing the concrete? The word “easement” is one of those insidious weasel words that gives me the creeps.
Makes me wonder if homeowners are also subject to press gangs who are required, under forced manual labour, to build a new city hall if the city feels the need for one. WTF???
Here’s what happened here recently. It can be hard for the sidewalk plow to follow the actual sidewalk around a curve, because you can’t see a damn thing after a snowfall. They usually do a pretty good job of it, but a few years ago the plow tore up a bit of my neighour’s lawn. The damage became evident in the spring. The city apologized and replaced the damaged portion. Not a huge deal, but just an example of government doing what it should be doing, and being accountable for little mistakes.
Pour isopropyl alcohol down the drain. It melts ice immediately.
In my locale (Nebraska, USA) at least it is the owner’s responsibility, unless the lease/rental agreement explicitly devolves it to the renter/lessee. Now do many absentee landlords ignore their obligations re snow removal? Yep, but if the city/town/village decides to enforce or cite, the citation/violation will go to the property owner.
This was also the case when I lived in Iowa and Boston.
Around here we don’t have sidewalks, so problem solved on who is responsible for snow clearing on those.
Rant to self: The anchovy paste is in the BLUE tube. The garlic paste is in the BLACK tube. One is not a good substitute for the other, so pay attention to which one you are grabbing next time.
Back in the old days "greasy kid stuff’ hair pomade and ordinary toothpaste came in very similar metal squeeze tubes.
Groggy in the morning maybe with the lights off is not the time to be selecting your toothpaste tube by feel. Just sayin’
Weekends aren’t long enough. 
Well, any hope of this year being better than last year just jumped out the window.
I’ve been working remotely for a game studio for the past two years. Our game is an MMO, and we just went Early Access on Steam last month. We’d been promised sizeable bonuses if we kicked our own asses to get it out. Yeah, the alert reader can probably very easily figure out the name of the project.
Yesterday, we were told that the entire studio had been laid off. Tomorrow is payday for most of us, and we’ve been told that there’s no money to pay it. PTO won’t be paid off, either. At least we’re all keeping our computers.
I got extremely lucky with my particular hiring situation- I was hired through a third party here in Canada, so I should get my 5 weeks of accrued PTO and a two-week severance.
My wife has been out of work for almost six months. She’s just gotten a job offer, but hasn’t started yet. Money’s going to be incredibly tight for us.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Since the drain is blocked, and I can’t get all of the water out of the tub, the alcohol would be significantly diluted unless I poured in a gallon or two. And alcohol is less dense than water, so not likely to sink to the block.
I can give it a try, but do you think it will work in those circumstances?