There are valid tradeoffs, though. If you have a little more fire safety but as a result a significant increase in housing costs that pushes some people at the

There are valid tradeoffs, though. If you have a little more fire safety but as a result a significant increase in housing costs that pushes some people at the margins into homelessness, that might not be worthwhile. Is the requirement to have two staircases in apartment buildings worth all of the extra lost space? Maybe, but also maybe not. Ultimately we should be optimizing our policies for human well being, not safety. If we lock everybody in padded rooms, they'll be much safer than if we allow them to go out and do dangerous things like get in cars, but that's obviously a bad tradeoff.