The river, the lake plain, and the bench
The River Bottoms and the streets that follow the Provo River are the wet end of the city. Groundwater and irrigation keep soils moist. Patios, sport courts, and walks in that part of town can settle even when the slab was poured well, because the base stays damp. Foam is worth a conversation here: a heavy cement slurry on already soft ground is sometimes the wrong weight. Sometimes slurry is still the right, cheaper tool. Looking at the slab beats guessing.
West Provo, toward the airport and the lake, sits on finer lake sediments. The ground is flat, many driveways are long, and a sunken panel tends to hold water rather than shed it. That standing water makes the next winter worse. Getting the panel to drain is the point of the lift.
The east bench is the old shoreline, which is why neighborhoods such as Edgemont sit up on a real shelf, with Grandview on a lower rise farther west. Lots tilt. Driveways and side yards were benched into the slope. The failure is often the downhill edge of a slab that lost support, or steps that settled away from a walkout. Rock Canyon and the other canyon mouths add runoff in a hard storm. If mountain water crosses the driveway every summer, fix the water when you lift the slab.
Downtown and the streets around BYU — including the Joaquin and Maeser areas — mix old walks, replaced squares, and driveways that have been patched more than once. A trip lip may be a sunken square, a tree, or a utility trench that was backfilled poorly. Those are three different repairs.