The problem is in the fact that we have been treating more and more banal construction projects as if they were chemical factories.
The permiting process for a normal residential block of flats in Prague takes several years, because every NIMBY can have their say repeatedly.
Everything can be overdone and we as a civilization might have overdone it with safetyism. On a similar note, look at the "free range kid" movement, which is fighting hard to give children at least some freedom which, 40 years ago, was considered absolutely natural.
I think we're in agreement on that point. What I worry about is there's a line of reasoning in the US that there should be no permitting and zero code enforcement, and I think that's too far in the other direction. But I would like to see in the US a change to a model where you're not constrained to a Le Courbosier style development with residential, commercial, and industrial spaces situated in separate centers, because that's not a natural mode of development and it has created many ills here.
I suspect that I would feel the same as you do about flats in Prague.
The argument for codes and such is information asymmetry. The person selling you something may know corners were cut, but they don't tell you.
An argument against codes (and licensing) is they are one size fits all. Maybe someone with different preferences would trade off quality and price differently than you do. I think this especially shows up in licensing: a rich person wants their doctor to be extremely good, even if that greatly elevates the cost; a poor person would be better off at lesser quality medical care they could actually afford.
My favorite example of redundancy is the US requirement to have two staircases in an apartment block for the case of fire.
Most other developed nations do not mandate this, one staircase being considered enough. And they don't have an epidemics of fire deaths either. In general, frequency of fires in domestic settings is a fraction of those 100 years ago.
If Switzerland or Czechia can live with one staircase per building, so can the US. This alone would reduce costs of construction somewhat, and make some currently illegal construction projects legal.
>The problem is in the fact that we have been treating more and more banal construction projects as if they were chemical factories.
Add up all the people who benefit from this. The regulatory bureaucracy, the engineering firms, every tradesman who holds a license protecting him from market competition, etc, etc. That's a hell of a lot of people. So the racket goes on.
The permiting process for a normal residential block of flats in Prague takes several years, because every NIMBY can have their say repeatedly.
Everything can be overdone and we as a civilization might have overdone it with safetyism. On a similar note, look at the "free range kid" movement, which is fighting hard to give children at least some freedom which, 40 years ago, was considered absolutely natural.