Parking facilities for bikes in Tseung Kwan O, the allocation of stalls in a Shamshuipo jade market and the planting of trees in Wan Chai are among the issues in districts that are deemed trivial. But when it comes to people-based governance, they're matters that count.
The establishment of district boards in 1982 - renamed district councils in 2000 - marked a significant step in democratic politics. As the junior class of politics, the lower-tier 18 district bodies provided the breeding ground for political aspirants and quickly emerged as a key component of representative government.
However, 24 years on - and six years after the abolition of the middle-layer regional and urban councils in 2000 - an ongoing review of the rules, functions and composition of district councils has drawn mixed reaction.
The public greeted the proposals to give more powers to district councillors with a degree of indifference and doubt, although they generally agreed with the broad direction of a bigger role for members. And district councillors and political parties had no good reason to oppose initiatives from which they could benefit.
But political scientists viewed the proposals as piecemeal, lacking a long-term vision about the place of the councils in the political structure. And privately, government officials admitted that room for any drastic changes in the review was extremely limited.
This newspaper has learned that officials at one point considered not to conduct the consultation exercise as promised, in the wake of the rejection of the constitutional reform blueprint in December.