Hi, architect here. I have a lot to say about the issue, but I'll just start with a comment that the place with the highest rate of fires in residences and deat

Hi, architect here. I have a lot to say about the issue, but I'll just start with a comment that the place with the highest rate of fires in residences and deaths from these per capita is Mississippi, which has one of the lowest rates of people living in multifamily buildings. In addition to the rural nature of the state, and prevalence of non-professional fire departments in these areas (these two items moot to this discussion), a simple version of the biggest contributors to this outcome are: the housing stock here starts out as poor quality - there are a lot of mobile homes, which have a separate, less restrictive and more dangerous building code. Plus the lack of skilled labor leads to worse initial quality over the entire built sector. The other major factor is lax or nonexistent enforcement of existing building codes and housing regulations. So already poor housing degrades quickly and badly. A relatively wealthy small town I'm familiar with went two years without a Building Code enforcement official. But in contrast to the average American city, the average "European" city (let's just go with the generality) is much more "regulated" in this area. Planning permission is much harder to come by, and questions like whether a building can get by -safely- with a single stair is part of that vetting process. But it's very definitely just one aspect of the review. I have extensive experience with California, having worked there for over a decade and even having passed the California Supplemental Exam. Folks are absolutely 100% correct that environmental and community planning review processes are routinely abused by those with clout to maintain scarcity of the resource they possess. "Those with clout" typically means wealthy homeowners and large developers who want to shut smaller parties out of the process. Anyway, much more to say about this and I might chime in if I get the chance. But I love that the discussion is happening. The system in the US is pretty universally broken. But TL;DR the cause is not as simple as "less regulation good!" or "more regulation good!"