In the case of American suburbs, places will need to change by basically tearing everything down and rebuilding differently, either a piece at a time or all at once.
You make this statement like there are national zoning laws. Doing exactly this is common in northeastern New Jersey, and the result is pretty dense and walkable suburban areas. That said, much of this is due to momentum; many of the suburbs were platted before car ownership was widespread and the later ones continued similar, familiar patterns.
Separately a lot of state and local legislation that is contentious can be copy pasted and sent along by lobbying groups.