Do our tax dollars actually pay for streetsweepers or has that department been cut out of the budget for awhile?
As a former associate of a municipal roads maintenance section, I may have some insight for you on this topic. The "hack and slash" budgetting of the mid 90's resulting in greatly reduced levels of service for "soft" maintenance activities like street sweeping, grass cutting, etc. Instead of being done every couple of weeks, they're done every couple of months if at all. After a while, people start to realize that the old levels of service were usually justified (i.e. - don't sweep the streets and junk gets imbedded in the asphalt)