Most American cities make the abutting property owner handle sidewalk repair. That is the usual answer, and it gets repeated as if it were the only one. It is not. Some cities take the whole job. Some split it. Some fix only what they decide is dangerous enough. Same crack, same slab, and that one choice decides whether it is a bill or a service request.
Nashville: the city takes the whole job
Nashville's Department of Transportation says it "is responsible for all aspects of Nashville's sidewalks, from master planning the city's newest projects to repairing damage to our most historic sidewalks." That is unusually broad language. The page does not carve out an owner-liability exception.
See damage and Nashville points residents to hubNashville (hub.nashville.gov), not to a contractor and not to an owner-bill process. One distinction worth holding onto: this is the transportation department describing its own scope on its own page, not an ordinance assigning the duty. It is the clearest city-pays statement in our records. It is still a department page. See the Nashville sidewalk repair record for the source.
Boston: it depends on your street, not your city
Boston does not give you one citywide answer. It turns on whether the address is on a public way or a private way.
Public ways: the City of Boston handles infrastructure maintenance. Residents only need to clear snow along their property line.
Private ways: "Residents are responsible for all maintenance of the streets and sidewalks along the private way," per the city's public works guidance. That is full owner responsibility for the street as well as the sidewalk.
Which means two houses a block apart can get opposite answers. Boston publishes a Street Book showing which ways are public, and that lookup is the reliable test. Do not guess from the neighborhood, the paving, or what a neighbor told you. The Boston record has the guidance and the Street Book link.
Chicago: the city repairs only the worst of it
Chicago sits in the middle. The city repairs sidewalks it considers especially dangerous. Ordinary cracking and settling usually land on the owner. The Shared Cost Sidewalk Program softens that: owners pay roughly $600 to $1,500, while seniors and owners with disabilities get a 50% discount. There is a catch. Applications open once a year and fill within days.
So what does that look like on the ground? A Chicago block can get repaired not because its concrete was worse than the next block's, but because somebody on it got into the program that year. Local coverage has described the result as geographic disparities in which sidewalks get fixed. That is what a calendar-based program produces.
How to tell which model your city uses
Start with the city's own streets or public works page and read what it says about responsibility. If the department says it repairs sidewalks, that points to a city-pays model. If it explains how owners report a defect, get permits, or arrange repairs, that points the other way.
Then go one layer deeper and find the ordinance. Look for a municipal-code title or chapter called Streets and Sidewalks, or Streets, Sidewalks and Public Places. Owner-duty language often sits under a heading such as "abutting property owners" or "property owner responsibility."
Be ready for the answer to be split rather than clean, because it usually is. Boston's turns on street status. Chicago's turns on severity and on a program window. In California the statewide default under Streets and Highways Code § 5610 points at the owner, and cities such as Oakland codify that with their own enforcement and fees on top. In New York City the owner carries both the repair duty and, subject to an exemption for certain owner-occupied small residential buildings, the injury liability.
Before you buy
Ask the seller's agent one question in writing: has the city issued any sidewalk notice or violation for this address, and on what date? Then check the city's model yourself. In a city-pays city there may be little to inherit. In an owner-pays city, you are buying the concrete along with the house.
Look up the rule for your own city, with the code section cited: browse by issue.