We bought a potential retirement home about a year ago, and we've been working on it. We finally got zoning permission to re-do the porch and siding, and we want to do the steps at the same time. The wooden ones down from the porch will be replaced (with Trex-like composite), but the concrete ones present a problem.

This picture is a year old, and the crack you can see in the foreground, between the large block on the right and the steps on the left, has gotten a bit wider, and small chunks are coming loose.

Replacing these is going to be expensive, or a lot of weekend sledgehammer demo work to save some money (we're lucky, the local waste authority takes concrete debris at VERY low rates). We're wondering if there are ways to repair this that weren't TOO expensive, and would be good for about ten years...when it won't hurt quite as much to put some more money into the house. The railings are pretty easy to cut off and replace, but the crack...

Any ideas?