Where the sidewalk ends

Your flowers are pretty, but I want my sidewalk back

One thing I regularly see in Jo'burg that I've never noticed in another city is the personal claiming of the sidewalk/pavement by homeowners. Parkhurst is almost comically egregious for this. One minute you're casually walking on the pavement, and the next minute it disappears into a modernist landscaping fiasco leaving you to veer out into the street. Seriously, you can weave back and forth between pavement and street for block after block in some neighborhoods.

Fancy landscaping + safe pedestrian passage?  Well done!

I understand and appreciate the beautification aspect of said landscaping, but Jo'burg is major city with a large population! In other big cities, you can get a whopping fine just for parking your car on the sidewalk for a few minutes. But in Jo'burg, you apparently can claim the pavement all for your very own, sending pedestrians out to the streets to fend with the cars. In a city with a shocking rate of pedestrian deaths, maybe safe urban planning actually begins at home.