Lawns In Front of Businesses - A Michigan Thing?

[crawford]

How is this a Michigan thing? These lawns are all over the place in Chicago and other cities, especially in the Midwest and South.

[Maxine1958]

I seem to remember hearing a city engineer explain them like this. In many cities, those strips of grass are owned by the city so that if they decide to widen the streets they do not have to negotiate with the individual property owners. This was many years ago, and it may not apply in every community, but it does sort of make sense.