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There's a very fine line between "regulating an industry" and "picking winners". Codifying existing industry best practices as regulations tends to have the eff

There's a very fine line between "regulating an industry" and "picking winners". Codifying existing industry best practices as regulations tends to have the effect of entrenching existing institutions in that space, in proportion to how difficult compliance with those regulations is (either in complexity or cost). There's another fine line between regulating desired outcomes vs. regulating _towards_ desired outcomes. Using regulations to "nudge" towards a social good often means that the market, wiggly customer that it is, uses that nudge to push in directions that are not the desired outcome, or that achieve the desired outcome only in a technical sense. The negative examples are rampant; the good examples are harder to find, because a good regulation is nearly invisible. Take building codes as an example of good regulations, although if you've ever done a remodel or been involved in construction, you know that they're not _actually_ invisible. But for the most part they just make sure that buildings are safe and support certain common conventions that make future maintenance and upkeep a little easier. The goal of the regulations is to make sure that new construction adheres to certain standards of quality, and so that is what they do.

kiba 7y ago
They also increases the price of real estate since you can't actually build smaller homes, IIRC.
- wool_gather 7y ago
  Nothing's perfect. It's generally possible to amend laws and regulations if a compelling use case comes up. Does anything prevent having one code for residential buildings over a certain size, and another for smaller buildings?
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > Does anything prevent having one code for residential buildings over a certain size, and another for smaller buildings? The building codes aren't the way they are because you need different rules for smaller buildings. It's because existing residents don't want smaller buildings. If you can build smaller buildings then people will, and then you have a bunch of new students in your school district whose education is paid for from local property taxes, only their parents aren't paying a proportionate share because they have a smaller house with a lower property value. Which means the existing residents would have to make up the difference, which they don't want to do, so they have the building code prohibit building smaller homes. It's basically regulatory capture by existing homeowners of larger homes.
    - andrewla 7y ago
      I think that's understating the complexity of the IBC. The nice thing about building codes is that the regulators are local, but the regulations are very widely (voluntarily) adopted by those independent jurisdictions. Local jurisdictions will usually have addenda to the code, for local fire requirements, etc., but a lot of that flexibility is baked into the standards themselves. In here there may be regulatory capture from local builders, and at higher levels (state-wide) there may be some capture from larger construction companies, but there's very little in the way of a feedback loop to allow homeowners to significantly change the building code. Rather than debate in abstracts, I'd be curious if there is a particular section of the code that you feel is a result of this sort of capture. The IBC is available for browsing online [1], and Chapter 5 has the base restrictions on building size, with some notes on justification (largely about at what size you require additional fire suppression, which is a cost that most builders want to avoid in residential settings). [1] https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2018P3 https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2018P3
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - zip1234 7y ago
      You mean zoning codes and not building codes? Zoning codes have indeed primarily caused the lack of small buildings. Also a lack of understanding of property values and induced traffic. If I have a 40ft wide lot in a city and I want to build on it (I may not even be able to because of 'minimum width' requirements on lots), but if I do, I might only be able to build a tiny house on it in the very middle of the lot because of 10ft setbacks on either side. What do people do in this case? The lot gets purchased along with the one next to it by some rich people and then they build a massive house on it. The total value of the house may actually be less as a single house than two houses, but the zoning codes have forced it to a less valuable land use that is more spread out.
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        Both. Zoning can explicitly set lot size minima or density maxima. Building codes with specifications for door and corridor widths, accessibility ramps, minimum room sizes, bedroom counts, bath-bed ratios, height limits, basement exclusions, attached vs detached dwellings, "in-law" units, with or without seperate entrances and/or cooking facilities, etc., all indirectly efect housing size and density.
frenchyatwork 7y ago
> Codifying existing industry best practices as regulations tends to have the effect of entrenching existing institutions in that space In the long run, I'm not sure that's actually true. It really depends on the kind of regulation you're talking about (e.g. not so much with anti-trust regulation). Ultimately, most people want some form of quality control. When I buy milk, I don't to have to inspect the dairy farm myself. In the end, you still have industry regulations and winner pickers, it's just that the decisions and processes that control them are behind closed doors. Trying to navigate that as a small player can be very difficult. Regulations are a racket, but at least with government regulations, that racket is democratized.

kiba 7y ago

They also increases the price of real estate since you can't actually build smaller homes, IIRC.

wool_gather 7y ago
Nothing's perfect. It's generally possible to amend laws and regulations if a compelling use case comes up. Does anything prevent having one code for residential buildings over a certain size, and another for smaller buildings?
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Does anything prevent having one code for residential buildings over a certain size, and another for smaller buildings? The building codes aren't the way they are because you need different rules for smaller buildings. It's because existing residents don't want smaller buildings. If you can build smaller buildings then people will, and then you have a bunch of new students in your school district whose education is paid for from local property taxes, only their parents aren't paying a proportionate share because they have a smaller house with a lower property value. Which means the existing residents would have to make up the difference, which they don't want to do, so they have the building code prohibit building smaller homes. It's basically regulatory capture by existing homeowners of larger homes.
  - andrewla 7y ago
    I think that's understating the complexity of the IBC. The nice thing about building codes is that the regulators are local, but the regulations are very widely (voluntarily) adopted by those independent jurisdictions. Local jurisdictions will usually have addenda to the code, for local fire requirements, etc., but a lot of that flexibility is baked into the standards themselves. In here there may be regulatory capture from local builders, and at higher levels (state-wide) there may be some capture from larger construction companies, but there's very little in the way of a feedback loop to allow homeowners to significantly change the building code. Rather than debate in abstracts, I'd be curious if there is a particular section of the code that you feel is a result of this sort of capture. The IBC is available for browsing online [1], and Chapter 5 has the base restrictions on building size, with some notes on justification (largely about at what size you require additional fire suppression, which is a cost that most builders want to avoid in residential settings). [1] https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2018P3 https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2018P3
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - zip1234 7y ago
    You mean zoning codes and not building codes? Zoning codes have indeed primarily caused the lack of small buildings. Also a lack of understanding of property values and induced traffic. If I have a 40ft wide lot in a city and I want to build on it (I may not even be able to because of 'minimum width' requirements on lots), but if I do, I might only be able to build a tiny house on it in the very middle of the lot because of 10ft setbacks on either side. What do people do in this case? The lot gets purchased along with the one next to it by some rich people and then they build a massive house on it. The total value of the house may actually be less as a single house than two houses, but the zoning codes have forced it to a less valuable land use that is more spread out.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Both. Zoning can explicitly set lot size minima or density maxima. Building codes with specifications for door and corridor widths, accessibility ramps, minimum room sizes, bedroom counts, bath-bed ratios, height limits, basement exclusions, attached vs detached dwellings, "in-law" units, with or without seperate entrances and/or cooking facilities, etc., all indirectly efect housing size and density.

frenchyatwork 7y ago

> Codifying existing industry best practices as regulations tends to have the effect of entrenching existing institutions in that space In the long run, I'm not sure that's actually true. It really depends on the kind of regulation you're talking about (e.g. not so much with anti-trust regulation). Ultimately, most people want some form of quality control. When I buy milk, I don't to have to inspect the dairy farm myself. In the end, you still have industry regulations and winner pickers, it's just that the decisions and processes that control them are behind closed doors. Trying to navigate that as a small player can be very difficult. Regulations are a racket, but at least with government regulations, that racket is democratized.