I'm not sure deregulation is actually the answer here. It's more that our municipalities have bought into car oriented design and have adopted a terrible philos

I'm not sure deregulation is actually the answer here. It's more that our municipalities have bought into car oriented design and have adopted a terrible philosophy and awful set of regulations. We need to regulate good design that leads to compact and efficient communities instead. My fear with less regulations is that while you could see taller, and denser buildings in some areas, you'd also open up the potential for an increase in sprawl, as lazy developers chasing profits would equally be allowed to build low density sprawl if there was an incentive to. The local example of this is that in Metro Vancouver it is basically now impossible to build a typical suburban mall. No city will allow it because it's a terrible idea from an urban design and planning point of view. However, two malls have recently been built nonetheless! This happened because the developers found land near the airport and on First Nations land that was outside the jurisdiction of local government, and they could build whatever they wanted with little to no oversight.