For those who have concerns about the appearance of the retaining walls, you may want to drive down Archdale drive, between South Boulevard and Burnley - there are a number of homes there that had grade challenges, and the City put in retaining walls to maintain the level of the yard, and provide space for the sidewalks.
In my opinion, they did a very nice job with these; they blend in nicely with the surrounding homes. I've seen much worse, including installations where the yard was just graded off at the sidewalk location, and a very steep slope up into the yard, where grass, shrubs, etc., could not grow because of erosion. The retaining walls are made from good materials, not cheap, and well constructed - they should last for many, many years with little, if any, maintenance required, because of the 'overlap' design. Each stone has a lip on the back edge that overlaps the course of stone below it, to help secure it in place. In addition, there are sometimes construction adhesives, or even rebar that help to hold the stones in place if the grade and height is sufficient to warrant it.
