I don't have as an emotional reaction, so it's not clear to me why in that scenario it wouldn't be on the city to make sure they're doing inspections at a rate

I don't have as an emotional reaction, so it's not clear to me why in that scenario it wouldn't be on the city to make sure they're doing inspections at a rate that can keep up with development instead of slowing down development to keep a smaller budget? The slowing of development is clearly a political tool that can be used to wield political power & favors. I'm not sure the consequences of removing that tool but it would be that. There's also a concern about budget because if the development pace keeps up enough, then queue management of outstanding orders is also a problem (although that's true today, it's a problem for developers instead of the government). It might be interesting to have statuatory pricing for scheduling inspections for specific times (e.g. if you need it by next Monday, the price is 10 000x, if you make a reservation for an inspection in 12 months, the price is 0.5x & if you reschedule there's a meaningful penalty) & having requirements that the inspection must be completed within X days of some milestone (e.g. the business being open). That way the budget problem and the development process are intertwined and self-funded without involving politics and limiting how much competitors can screw over each other. Also, it's not all or nothing. Fire inspections are not typically the issue. The bigger issue though is things like electrical inspections which are blockers since they have to happen before other parts of the process complete (i.e. hard to inspect electrical when the business is open and the walls are all finished).