The first thing a Chicagoan notices when they visit NYC is the garbage. The dirty, stinky garbage in front of houses and shops, sometimes leaking putrid liquid into the street. Aside from the bad optics and hygienics, trash causes second order effects that diminish quality of life: increases rat population, worsens pollution, and causes traffic when garbage trucks slowly drive through one-lane streets. (I was not infrequently late to school as a child in Brooklyn because my bus got stuck behind a garbage truck.)
NYC, and many other cities, have tried various fixes, but none of them have solved the issue. Trash is messy. The solution is autonomous garbage collecting drones. When you’re ready to throw out the trash, you click a button on your app and a drone comes to pick up your garbage bag. It then flies the garbage bag to a transfer station, just like garbage trucks do today. The drone company makes money by charging the city a fee per delivery. The city saves money on sanitation workers, garbage trucks, and dealing with the ever-growing rat problem.