I'm all for getting rid silly regulations, like one mentioned in the article stating all houses must be faced in brick. But I hope attempts to rollback needless

I'm all for getting rid silly regulations, like one mentioned in the article stating all houses must be faced in brick. But I hope attempts to rollback needless regulations don't additionally throw away things like building codes. When I was slightly younger, I might have grumbled that things like the International Residential Code or the National Electric Code were a bunch of stupid rules getting in the way of the eminently reasonable thing I wanted to do, rules made by otherwise useless busybodies with nothing better to do with their time. That is not my attitude today. As I've been pulled into various wiring or handyman projects by family & friends, had a chance to actually read some of the bits of the IRC or NEC, and even lost my home to an apartment fire, I understand now that a lot of what I might have previously decried as stupid rules actually make sense from an engineering or safety perspective. These rules are informed by experience. And while violating some of the rules or recommendations can result in only minor annoyances, other violations can be dangerous, costing lives in an emergency and even making emergencies more likely. There's a saying that I've heard from pilots, "The FAR[1] is written in blood". More generally that is, the rules are the way they are because not doing it that way resulted in people dying. And I think the same holds true for a not-insignificant portion of building code today. I'm not saying we shouldn't be willing to question and criticize building code to make sure it isn't being needlessly restrictive, and that it's living up to its goal of making for safe, effective home design. But I think we should also be willing to concede that some of the rules in building codes are a Good Thing, even if it means that some of the ways we've achieved housing density in the past can't be done as cheaply anymore, or at all. 1. Federal Aviation Regulations