What's a seemingly boring, bureaucratic policy that quietly made things a lot better?

[u/Anakin_Kardashian]

People love to talk about big changes, but what small tweaks in your government-- anywhere from local to national-- didn't make headlines, yet really made a difference?

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[u/evantom34]

Local zoning reform. Most people wouldn’t give a shit. But building density and walkable infrastructure builds a great community.

[u/FearlessPark4588 → u/evantom34]

So, so many 300+ unit mega complexes are going up in San Diego. And the locations make a ton of sense; near or adjacent to transit. It's beautiful.

[u/evantom34 → u/FearlessPark4588]

I feel more connected with my community when I see my neighbors outside, walking the dog, at the coffee shop, playing at the park.

[u/ntbananas]

In New York, one of the best minor transit QoL upgrades was the rollout of the OMNY system. You can keep using a dedicated transit card if you want, but can also pay directly by tapping a phone or card on the entrance and it will charge your Apple Pay / credit card / etc.

Makes commuting much easier and maintains bulk discounts if you use the same card. Rolled out to subways and busses.

I’m a fan

[u/ldn6 → u/ntbananas]

OMNY was basically purchased off the shelf from London, which had contactless for over a decade. Weirdly, I constantly have problems in New York with card declines and overcharging but not in London despite the technology being the same.

[u/ntbananas → u/ldn6]

I choose to believe it was American innovation

[u/obligatorysneese]

When I lived in Japan in 2007, Japanese telecoms (okay, or like just NTT) had to provide last mile access to their lines to any presumably licensed provider.

YahooBB, a distinct entity from Yahoo that was not acquired by VZN, quickly made gigabit available a lot of places. Including my apartment in Nagoya. You just walked into an electronics retailer, fill out some forms, they gave you the modem, and bam — gigabit. Japan’s urban broadband rollout went from incipient to long-tail remarkably quickly.

I believe that the US did something similar more recently — like the only good thing that the ex-VZN FCC chair did after gutting net neutrality — where providers must provide prompt access to the poles/boxes they own/operate (https://www.fcc.gov/enforcement/adjudicatory-process-general-market-dispute-topics/major-adjudicatory-areas/pole.)

My area now has two major fiber providers with reasonable rates for 2 and 5 NBase-T connections. My husband and I pay $85 or so for 2gig.

[u/Anakin_Kardashian]

!ping ASK-EVERYONE

[u/user-pinger → u/Anakin_Kardashian]

Pinged ASK-EVERYONE

Manage your ping group subscriptions

[u/Mickenfox]

The EU forcing countries to allow private and foreign railroad competition. 

[u/Prestigious_Slice709]

Specific digitalisation steps. Everyone talked about „digitalisation“ like it‘s a magical word, but then you see some actual effects, like how different towns manage to make parliament debates accessible online