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You paid for it! Fancy sidewalks on Milwaukee's south side need big time repairs just eight months after the city put them in. The reason why will leave you shaking your head. Over the last few years, the City of Milwaukee has received nearly two dozen grants to help pay for "streetscaping" -- premium paving projects designed to spruce up business districts around town. They weren't cheap to put in and won't be cheap to fix. "A very important aspect to encouraging people to walk on our streets, to walk on our sidewalks, is to make it a pleasant place for them to be there," said city engineer Jeff Polenske. Between grant money and tax money --all public money-- last fall, the City of Milwaukee spent more than $860,000 improving a 14-block stretch of Greenfield Avenue. "I think it's not necessary to do something like that," said shopkeeper Hashem Saqer. "It's a fancy sidewalk. We need something more important than a sidewalk." Especially considering about 100 feet of it is now torn up, crumbling, and in need of repair at taxpayer expense. "I think that we are paying enough just to redo it again," said business owner Carla Quintanilla. The culprit: Snow plows. The problem is the "bump-out" curbs actually protrude into the intersection, so when plows ride down the parking lane, they wind up ripping up the curbs. To keep that from happening again, the city recently put up warning markers, but the city engineer admits there's no guarantee the same thing won't happen next winter. "Depending on how much snow you actually have, I imagine can make it a challenge at times knowing where that curb is," Polenske said. Some neighbors, like Carla Quintanilla, do appreciate the upgrades. "It looks good. Maybe it's not functioning like it should be, but it's good. At least they put something in here," Quintanilla said. Like it or not, there's still a good chance the fancy curbs will need another facelift next summer. "The environment that you're making these improvements in is not necessarily a friendly one," said Polenske. Polenske also said it's not uncommon for snow plows to damage curbs throughout the city each winter -- just the cost of doing business.