According to my plot plan, my property starts at the curb.
The city has a tree easement restriction as to what can / cannot be planted in the strip between the curb and sidewalk. The sidewalk is also an easement area, that I must maintain for safety.
I, too, am from The Land of the Devil Strip, but I don’t recall anyone ever being especially precious about walking/not walking on it.
There may have been some masculine pleading. I may have rolled my eyes. We’ll see if this turns into a long term thing or not. This is a recent development after 27 years. And they say it’s hard to keep things fresh in a relationship!
here where I live at since they never put in 90 percent of theresidental sidewalks that’s been promised every decade since the 40s you have to walk there or you walk in the street next to the curb ……. people from more civilized places get confused by this …….
And people from uncivilized places get confused by the opposite situation 
In the 1930’s, when my parent returned to live in the USA, her younger sister, who had preceded, was dancing with embarrassment because her straight-off-the-boat sisters were walking down the road, because, being yokels, they didn’t know what a sidewalk was.
A few months ago, I was walking my dog through an unfamiliar neighbourhood and I noticed someone had put up a sign on the grass strip saying “Please don’t let your dog pee or poo here”. I decided not to make waves, even though it technically belongs to the city.
I am surprised with the number of responses saying the city owns the strip.
All my experience has been with the strip owned by the resident and the city/county only having an easement. I.e., they can come along and dig up something, repair sidewalks, etc. without having to file extra paperwork. OTOH the resident is responsible for mowing, trees, etc.
Regarding walking across such strips. My general rule of thumb is “What if a lot of people did this?” Clearly a truly large number would beat the grass down to dirt. But there’s a limit to how many could realistically do this a day, and on the same spot too boot. So I wouldn’t worry about it in most cases unless it looks like there’s a problem with too much foot traffic.
If it’s an area where cars customarily and legally park, it’s crazy talk to suggest one isn’t allowed to walk on that strip. If there’s fancy garden there, shame on the person who planted it for putting an obstruction where people need space to safely exit their vehicles.
That strip is called the boulevard here. I’m not sure who owns it, but the city plants the trees and the homeowners cut the grass. I’ve never heard of anyone worried about walking on it. It’s just grass. We walk on the grass in our lawns all the time. I don’t know what the difference would be.
On my lot, it’s my property from the street to the next guy’s lot in back of me. However, the city gets an easement, or right to use, for a strip in front where the water main and gas line are, and there’s one in the back where the sewer and utility poles are. Oddly, the electricity and cable TV lines run on the poles, but both are run underground from pole to house. Having the lines on poles obligates the utilities to pay to trim the trees near the lines. The phone lines are all underground, though many people no longer use them.
Birds perching on the wires plant “volunteer” mulberry trees, and the squirrels seem to find the TV cables irresistibly yummy.
In Philly it is called the verge. I think that is also British. My friend in Cleveland called it the tree lawn. I guess if someone had planted flowers there, I would avoid walking on it, but otherwise I would certainly walk on it. Montreal doesn’t have them, presumably it would interfere with snow clearance (the city plows the sidewalks, thank god).
I’ve never seen such a thing, but if I ran across one I would probably try to step over it, because I generally assume that every non-paved surface is caked in dog poop. (Comes from living in an apartment building infested with the things.)
In my SoCal neighborhood, city code requires 3 clear walkable strips from the curb to the sidewalk on every parkway. This is only sometimes adhered to and rarely actioned by the city. Still, even with a nod to proper landscaping esthetics, it seems that parkways by city streets are simply made for walking. How else do you get out of your fucking car?
Here in New England I’ve always heard it called the tree belt.
Once I lived in an apartment with no off street parking. And there was a blizzard coming, so I parked on the tree belt so plows could plow. The next morning I had a parking ticket on my car! The cops were dicks and couldn’t explain why it was illegal, just that I had better pay the ticket. I wasn’t even blocking the sidewalk, I still can’t figure out why I got a parking ticket on my front lawn.
In college, the professor in my linguistics class talked about collecting names for the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road - median, boulevard, devil’s highway. He said the most common name for it was - that strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road.We had one of those in our first house. There was a continuation of the walkway from the front door across it to the curb. If people stepped anywhere else, I can’t say I gave much of a toot - it’s grass. It’s not like you’re walking on my flower beds.
Now get off my strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road.
Regards,
Shodan
(Skipping over all replies)
Sunny Daze … that is a most weird and outlying viewpoint of your husband’s. No harm, I suppose. Do you know where he learned that?
I can see it being a very, VERY provincial “unwritten neighborly etiquette” thing in a small hamlet somewhere. There are odd one-off rules in lots of communities. But as a covering rule of life in America that everyone is supposed to just know – not nearly.
Around here, it’s even totally kosher to walk on people’s lawns to get from the street to their front door regardless of whether or not a paved path is present. I mean, yeah, marching-band practice on someone’s lawn is too much … but fussing over someone merely crossing one’s lawn on foot makes one The Neighbor Everyone Talks About.
Lawns are meant to be walked and played on. I declare it so! 
All the weirder.
When my kids were younger, they played baseball and catch and Frisbee and whatever with their friends in my yard, and it was all scuffed up and trampled. And the Neighbor Everybody Talks About, who is the retired developer of the subdivision, would tell me it was going to destroy my lawn. To which I always replied, “I’m not raising grass, I’m raising children.”
Now they are all grown up, and my lawn is pristine. I think I liked it better the way it was before.
Regards,
Shodan
I wonder if in some regions, grass is more “precious” than it is in the Deep South. It’s so hot, humid, and rainy down here that you really can’t damage your grass in any permanent way. It grows too quick, too lush, and for too many months out of the year (~10 months at minimum). I’m not even sure salting the lawn would keep grass from growing back within a month or so.