Life in Venice is different because Venice is different from most other cities, and therefore customs and ways of doing things differ from other places.
Garbage collection in Venice today is more efficient, but suffers nonetheless from some of the same problems as always.
Venice had an organised system of differentiated garbage collections from the 1400s, to keep the city clean and the canals open.
Streets in Venice have different names from in the rest of Italy, because Venice wasn’t a part of Italy for most of its history.
Fondamenta de la Tana and Rio de la Tana seem inconspicuous but the name reveals ancient trading connections to the Black Sea.