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Older women in Belfast used to sweep the street in front of their house (in the housing estates)

Though it was usually just a way to either spy on neighbours, or gossip with one another.
Does that count as ‘civic duty’?
hehe

However, it’s not so common these days…

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Sweeping your walk is also pretty common in Japan. I remember hearing one story from a foreigner living there who noticed that her walk was always clean, and then discovered a neighbour had been sweeping it for her. The neighbour then hinted to her that it was a custom she ought to adopt so as not to bring shame to the neighbourhood.

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It’s a common practice where I grew up in Portugal as well, mostly because we spent so much time sitting on the stairs.

And I must admit that Pierce has something there because the times I remember being out there when Grandma was cleaning the stairs, she was always chatting up one of the neighbours.

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Common practice in France and Germany, too. When I lived in France, washing the steps was part of any cleaning
wo(man)’s duty, along with cleaning the rest of your apartment/house….

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Most Canadian city bylaws require you to keep the walk in front of your home clean and free of debris. In the big cities, I don’t see many people bothering to do this, though.

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It is/was common practice in Germany. It was also the occupant’s responsibility for the space in front of the home. They could be fined for an untidy walk way.

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During my trip to Puerto Valerta last year, I noticed this in the old part of the city. Considering how old and dirty the streets were, the locals seemed to take great pride in their front steps.

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Bobby: Maybe once a week. Across the board, if you avoid the obvious tourist restaurants on the main drags, the quality of the food is superior (I’m no judge, but my fellow diners have indicated as much). Most or all of the ingredients are fresh and local, so that helps a lot.

As for cost, on the low end it’s comprable to Canada. I’ve only been to one higher-end restaurant thus far, and I’d say it’s priced at, maybe, 20% more than you’d pay in Canada. However, that’s pretty much your standard European mark-up–things are just more expensive across western Europe, in my experience.

The service at the aforementioned nice restaurant was superb. The service at your local bar/pub is friendly and decent as well.

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Oh, something else I forgot to mention about Mongolia. The rooms in my apartment building and the corridors in the apartment building were owned by different people. I thought this was utterly bizarre. It also meant that the hallways and stairs leading to my apartment were not cleaned and the lamps in the hallways were not lit, so I had to get to my apartment with a flashlight.

I’ve told this to several people and they have had a hard time believing it.

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In Puerto Rico, this is common among older folks and in more rural areas. I also noticed it when I lived in Brooklyn. My Polish neighbors would often clean the section of sidewalk just in front of their house… sometimes putting the pile of dirt in front of our house.

I hate to just guess, but I think it has alot to do with a sense of property. Your house isn’t just what’s inside. And if you don’t have a yard to manicure, like so many denizens of the American suburbs do, your stoop, your walkway, even your slice of the sidewalk is all you have. In contemporary urban America, we have less of a feeling that these things are our resposibility. We think it’s public property (which a sidewalk is, I believe) and it’s someone else’s probleml, or else we just concentrate on the inside, because it’s where we spend our time. We’re less concerned about the outside areas, perhaps because we’re less proud of our surroundings, or we feel they’re less “ours”.

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