Regulatory Obsolescence: Building Codes vs. the Housing Crisis

I ran across a video which ties together my interests in architecture and economics to help explain a peculiar oddity of North American apartment design.

Building codes imposed as far back as the 19th century still dictate design for modern structures built with modern materials, fire suppression, earthquake resistance, and the like. Obsolete concerns are almost etched in stone once legislation is imposed. Bureaucrats don't innovate, they cause everything they touch to stagnate. Legal obstacles distort all economic and design considerations for everyone involved in such projects.

Modern apartment complexes often use steel channel wall framing, fiberglass insulation, gypsum wall board for interiors, and exterior cladding with brick, metal, or engineered wood that is quite fire-resistant. Floors are often stressed concrete or steel truss joists with corrugated metal and lightweight concrete. It's not exactly a firetrap these days. It's been that way for decades. It's time for obsolete laws to go, or at least be revised with exceptions based on construction materials and other design considerations instead of one-size-fits-all mandates.

I also speak from experience here. I have played small roles in commercial architecture as a draftsman. The hassle of dealing with code inspection throughout design and construction wasn't really about safety and accessibility, it was about compliance. This costs money and time without any real benefits. Architects want to design buildings which earn respect and prestige. In my case, the firm was planning to move into the new building, so they were literally willing to trust the design with their own lives, too.

The residential portion of the mixed-use structure was about 20 stories tall, covered about 1/4 of the city block, and offered each of the four units per floor access to daylight on two walls, but the expense of designing the structure meant the condominiums were not affordable housing. The only way the project could be viable was as luxury homes largely for seasonal residents. And it was finished in 2008, so if you know your economic history, you know it was our own skyscraper curse in miniature. The firm survived, the building eventually reached full occupancy, and the new offices are very nice. My drafting career was a casualty of the real estate crash though. I have only had a few odd jobs related to that field since.

Housing costs have been continually propped up through rock-bottom interest rates and money supply inflation thanks to central banks and their efforts to engineer the economy. New commercial and milti-unit residential construction is a morass of red tape. "Affordable housing" is a political campaign plank and justification for more tax-funded bureaucracies, not a real goal to be achieved by economic freedom and realistic re-examination of the legal obstacles in place. All the while, fire danger has quietly fallen and other hazards cited as justification have similarly faded thanks to real work by people with a real stake in making human progress.

But maybe I'm wrong. Europeans, are your cities poised to burst into flame and slay thousands in unstoppable, inescapable infernos? Are you doomed to suffocate and bake because your regulations don't require a second stairwell? Will our benevolent overlords manage to create peace and prosperity with just a few more laws? Let me know in the comments!