Citizens often take beautiful days in homey neighborhoods for granted. Daily, they stroll through pristine parks, take their children to brand-new playgrounds and ride bikes on paved trails without a second thought as to how these places came to be.

Who actually pays for all of these amenities? Usually, the government does. So when a new after-school program, highway expansion or library improves residents’ communities, citizens can see evidence of their tax dollars working for them.

Unfortunately, state and local taxes alone aren’t enough for these governments to provide a high quality of life for residents, as overarching legacy costs and scarcity of funding often put them in dire financial straits. In this case, grants often fill the gap, appropriated from higher levels of government to trickle down into local communities.