One thing I don't understand about the methods of road (and sidewalk) repair being carried out by the city:

Why do they tear up large areas of the neighborhood all at one time, then take all of forever to redo it?

Wouldn't it make more sense to just do a small segment at a time and complete that portion of the job before moving on to the next segment? The repair work  itself wouldn't take any longer and there would be far less disruption of the normal business and pedestrian activities.