Like any city areas vary widely.

One thing that seems clear is that very few real estate investors around the country are working the TDR angle.

SO, I won't ask the same question again but pose it from a different angle.

Grind the crack with an angle grinder concrete blade. 

It is oppressive.Put some flowering plants in front and maybe some hanging plants of angle brackets off the posts or from the porch ceiling to brighten things up.

Of course, as a landlord, attempts to maintain the business angle often fall on deaf ears. 

They cast the net wide, then follow up on every lead.

And it is 24" wide.  

(The ditch will likely be 8' wide - I'm guessing they need 75' for bulldozer races) When asked if we would be compensated for our loss of trees, here was the response: "We're not going to take your trees - we'll leave them laying right there for you to do with what you want when the project is over."

Congratulations on law school, seems like you are in a good position and thinking about the future positively.While reading your post I couldn't help but think that, although your law-school loans could be forgiven by working for the state for an extended period of time, perhaps the incremental compensation that would be foregone as a result of not following the traditional private sector legal path may in fact be a net detriment to your financial picture.My point is that weighing the following two alternatives against one another may help to approach your question from another angle entirely: 1) the student loan repayment savings and commensurate lower compensation for your services to the state during the time period required and 2) paying your entire student loan debt out of pocket but potentially making a substantially-higher income working in the private sector that could far exceed the benefit of having your student loans paid off by the state ($110,000 over 10 years?)