This resource? The often overlooked sidewalk.
As I explain in my forthcoming book, Sidewalk Nation, public rights of way like sidewalks are essential for communities, businesses, residents and governments alike. By essential, I don’t mean that having them is essential. Rather, effectively maintaining and regulating them is what is vital. Indeed, simply having sidewalks without this kind of oversight can be even worse than not having them at all.
Unique among all public spaces, sidewalks inherently entail a sprawling collision among uses. We travel on sidewalks — to work, to school, to recreation. We also engage in commerce on sidewalks — from outdoor dining to advertising, vendors, delivery robots, scooter rentals and more. We socialize and protest there. It’s where we put infrastructure that keeps the city running, such as utility poles and lighting. Some people even sit and sleep there.
Each of these uses competes for limited space, and the space each one takes leaves less for the others. But because none of these uses is necessarily “better” than the others, the goal must be to harmonize them.
That’s where too many cities and towns have fallen short. First, in many cities, scattered parts of city government regulate these uses, and they don’t always coordinate very well. Departments of transportation, sanitation, buildings, consumer affairs, health and more all overlap on the sidewalk. Without seeing the whole picture, regulators can leave gaps or create unintended clashes.
Second, nearby property owners are often required to play too central a role in sidewalk management. In many municipalities, they are responsible for repairing the sidewalk and shoveling snow from it. They sometimes are responsible for installing the sidewalk, and they may even have the power to dictate what happens there. But private property owners don’t necessarily have the interests of the whole city at heart, and even if they do they may lack the ability or the resources to shoulder these responsibilities. The consequence too often is that the quality of a neighborhood’s sidewalks rises and falls with its residents’ fortunes.
Third, many cities and towns find themselves without the financial resources to do much of this work consistently well. Budgets are tight everywhere, tax bases risk being hollowed out and federal and state grant dollars are harder and harder to come by. It can therefore be appealing to offload more responsibility onto private property owners, private partners like business improvement districts or both.
In the book, I offer solutions to these structural problems. First, our cities would benefit from Departments of Sidewalks to consolidate the functions scattered across agencies and property owners. Such a department would also empower officials to develop and act on that necessary wide-angle lens, it would lead to more coherent and one-stop-shop regulation, it would mean more efficient and accountable maintenance, and it would more equitably separate the responsibility for sidewalks from the wallets of the people who happen to live near them.
Money is no doubt a sticking point. But that’s a solvable problem too. Streamlining regulation along these lines can actually help cities save money. But where more revenue is needed, the sidewalk improvement fees pioneered by Ithaca and Denver are a great model: At low per-person cost, these fees can bring in millions of dollars that are explicitly allocated to funding municipal sidewalk efforts. Other creative financing options include tax increment financing, “adopt-a-sidewalk” programs and fees for commercial uses of public space, such as restaurant seating.
Sidewalks are at the core of what makes cities and towns vibrant, connected and safe. They also reflect and impact numerous other areas of law and policy. But their importance is so easily overlooked. Fortunately, many cities and towns are beginning to change that legacy, but many more need to take up the challenge and do what’s necessary to make these essential public spaces work better for everyone.
Michael Pollack is a professor of law and associate dean for faculty development at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. His book, Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource, will be published June 2, 2026.
Governing's opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing's editors or management.
