> in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulatio

> in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulations - zoning, codes and other standards. While I see your point, I would state it somewhat differently: in the US, there are, roughly speaking, two opposing viewpoints on "policy" about "how we live": (1) The viewpoint that a central authority should figure out some "best" way to live, and impose it on everyone, or at least everyone in a significantly-sized geographic area, via technical/professional regulations, zoning, codes, etc. (2) The viewpoint that individual people, or groups of people who have something in common, should figure out how they want to live and set themselves up that way, and decisions about how various people and groups who happen to be in the same geographical area interact should be made by negotiation and consensus among the people and groups who are affected. Input can certainly be sought from technical professionals to inform those decisions, but at the end of the day, the people who make such decisions should be the people who have to live with the consequences. And to the extent that top-down, large-scale policies play a role, it should be to ensure that individuals and groups have the tools they need to make such decisions for themselves. What strikes me about this dispute, as with pretty much all such disputes that I have seen, is that both sides adhere to viewpoint #1; they just have different views on what the "best" way to live is that should be imposed on everyone. Practically nobody in such discussions even considers viewpoint #2 at all.