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In my country in Africa there is a huge shortage of homes in cities where building is regulated. Not enough homes are being built and many people live in shacks

In my country in Africa there is a huge shortage of homes in cities where building is regulated. Not enough homes are being built and many people live in shacks. Building in the villages has literally no regulations and amazing houses are being built at an amazing pace in the villages because you don't need any regulatory approval. I don't think all building regulations should be put aside but we have a crisis something needs to give.

anovikov 11mo ago
It's regulated everywhere it's just that corruption networks are so dense in the countryside, no one gives a damn about things being done legally.
- mmsimanga 11mo ago
  In my village there is no regulation for building residential property. You don't have title deeds either. You get allocated a piece of land by the local chief or headman/woman and you decide where and what you can build. The only regulation is you must have a toilet. Which tends to be a no brainer and one of the first things most people build. A simple Blair toilet.
  - anovikov 11mo ago
    This is same that i meant myself. Local gang so established, it is seen as a government itself, runs the place and national laws do not apply, resulting properties being from perspective of law, illegal - can't be officially sold or mortgaged, have no title deeds, and would have been razed if government had access there, except if a city official with a bulldozer appears, the local gang will meet them with machetes and pitchforks, and sending in tanks and helicopters is not worth it. It's not "deregulation", it's "lawlessness".
TylerE 11mo ago
Which just leads to things like this https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/earthquake-turkey-corruption-buildings-collapse https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/earthq...
- mmsimanga 11mo ago
  Typical structures in the villages are bungalows built by people you know. Sounds like the crisis in the link you shared is from corrupt approvals and poor construction of commercial properties sold to people. People build houses they will live in in the villages and for me this is a big enough incentive to build it properly. You will have no one to blame when your own roof falls on your head. The builders are also known and it would be a business ending move to build a rubbish house for your neighbour. Word would get out pretty quick. One thing people do in the village is talk as they have plenty time. I think all these other factors make up for the lack of regulation.
  - delusional 11mo ago
    One of the earliest known laws humans created (almost 4000 years ago) state that if a homeowner is killed by his house caving in, the builder must be put to death. We have known since forever that you can't just let people build shitty structures. Letting the free market take care of it isn't natural or neutral. It's literally never been how human society does things.
    - card_zero 11mo ago
      The Code of Hammurabi. https://archive.org/details/hiddenrichessour0000hays/page/132/mode/1up?q=%22Builder+shall+be+killed%22 https://archive.org/details/hiddenrichessour0000hays/page/13... Probably wasn't a list of real laws? So says Wikipedia: "Rather than a code of laws, then, it may be a scholarly treatise." There's zero equality in it. Killing a commoner is cheaper than killing a noble. If the badly built house falls on a slave, the builder owes the owner a slave. So if the free market is an innovation like equality, and is not natural, well, fair point I guess, and natural isn't necessarily good. But was Babylon natural, anyway, or just old? The notion that the free market is natural means something. I suppose organic is the real idea there, and that makes it just another appeal for using local knowledge as opposed to insensitive central management.
  - rippeltippel 11mo ago
    I think the point is to avoid roofs to fall at all: that's what anti-seismic regulations are for. They saved countless lives in places like Japan. They may not prevent all deaths, but can be an effective damage containment strategy. When an earthquake devastated the Italian city of L'Aquila, the majority of the survived buildings were those following regulations. Many houses built in the Middle Ages are gone.
dmix 11mo ago
I've often wondered how much of the western homeless crisis is due to not allowing ghettos/slums to exist, the last place the very poor could afford rent. Cities have essentially made them illegal over the past 30yrs. Once it gentrifies it's gone. Including even large blocks of subsidized apartment buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes All housing is now very carefully planned top-down. The only ones who get past all the red tape are high end condos or far-off single-family suburbs. So city government's only idea is to force each of those fancy buildings to have a subset of units as affordable housing. The supply of those is never enough to keep up. Government made buildings now take forever or straight up fail. Out of sympathy they removed an option for the very-poor and haven't come up with a replacement solution.
- card_zero 11mo ago
  In rural Gabon, presumably I wouldn't be renting but would own my own unsafe shanty. It's really tempting. But living in Libreville has more of a ring to it.
- kalaksi 11mo ago
  > western homeless crisis Haven't really heard about this crisis. Are you referring to the US?
  - SpecialistK 11mo ago
    The US and Canada (and to some extent elsewhere) have been experiencing a lot of homelessness and open air drug use due to fentanyl, housing unaffordability, and "community" mental health treatment rather than "mental hospitals."
  - arjie 11mo ago
    This is primarily an anglophone board so they are (perhaps inaccurately) referring to the Anglosphere which has far worse housing performance than elsewhere https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f0b5 https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f...
  - 11mo ago
baxtr 11mo ago
This outlines the problem with most regulation: There is no/litte discussion about the trade-offs. You have to see the other side, then weigh all pros and cons and then make a decision. In most cases regulation is sold as something that will improve a field with no downside at all. That’s just a lie and people find out over time.
- intended 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - pie_flavor 11mo ago
    You are surely not saying that because HN talks about it, it must be well-known and well-respected. Other political positions related to libertarianism, as you name it, have the exact same fate: some states respect them, others don't, and the parts of the national government lower on the totem pole than the cabinet think it's some sort of skin disease. You've never heard any mainstream pundit like John Oliver or Rachel Maddow ranting about overregulation; you've never heard anyone important in Democratic politics taking it seriously. The word 'abundance' in TFA was selected to deliberately refer to a book arguing for it, which nobody with establishment credentials had done until this year, and which is treated by the party as a brash bold unexpected controversial statement that should be treated with extreme suspicion.
  - bnjms 11mo ago
    Anti regulation of a sort is still a popular position. It’s just the libertarian hands of regulation that has fallen out of favor. I don’t think it will return. At first I wasn’t sure it would stick, the name isn’t very catchy, but I’ve heard some politicians mention abundance. There is and will be more calls for corrected regulation to improve building pipelines. From the left it will be for faster procurement of public housing. It’ll look different on the right.
- delusional 11mo ago
  Sure, western politics doesn't discuss the problem of regulation. Sure, sure, sure. Do you live in an alternate universe? The last 30 years have been dominated by deregulation and privatization.
Gibbon1 11mo ago
I think a commonality is none of the agencies in the way feel an existential risk from failing to execute. You could imagine a system where a permit and planning department finds it's functions taken over by a minimal state agency when not enough housing is built in its area. The state of California is slowly moving that direction because it's so bad.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

anovikov 11mo ago

It's regulated everywhere it's just that corruption networks are so dense in the countryside, no one gives a damn about things being done legally.

mmsimanga 11mo ago
In my village there is no regulation for building residential property. You don't have title deeds either. You get allocated a piece of land by the local chief or headman/woman and you decide where and what you can build. The only regulation is you must have a toilet. Which tends to be a no brainer and one of the first things most people build. A simple Blair toilet.
- anovikov 11mo ago
  This is same that i meant myself. Local gang so established, it is seen as a government itself, runs the place and national laws do not apply, resulting properties being from perspective of law, illegal - can't be officially sold or mortgaged, have no title deeds, and would have been razed if government had access there, except if a city official with a bulldozer appears, the local gang will meet them with machetes and pitchforks, and sending in tanks and helicopters is not worth it. It's not "deregulation", it's "lawlessness".

TylerE 11mo ago

Which just leads to things like this https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/earthquake-turkey-corruption-buildings-collapse https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/earthq...

mmsimanga 11mo ago
Typical structures in the villages are bungalows built by people you know. Sounds like the crisis in the link you shared is from corrupt approvals and poor construction of commercial properties sold to people. People build houses they will live in in the villages and for me this is a big enough incentive to build it properly. You will have no one to blame when your own roof falls on your head. The builders are also known and it would be a business ending move to build a rubbish house for your neighbour. Word would get out pretty quick. One thing people do in the village is talk as they have plenty time. I think all these other factors make up for the lack of regulation.
- delusional 11mo ago
  One of the earliest known laws humans created (almost 4000 years ago) state that if a homeowner is killed by his house caving in, the builder must be put to death. We have known since forever that you can't just let people build shitty structures. Letting the free market take care of it isn't natural or neutral. It's literally never been how human society does things.
  - card_zero 11mo ago
    The Code of Hammurabi. https://archive.org/details/hiddenrichessour0000hays/page/132/mode/1up?q=%22Builder+shall+be+killed%22 https://archive.org/details/hiddenrichessour0000hays/page/13... Probably wasn't a list of real laws? So says Wikipedia: "Rather than a code of laws, then, it may be a scholarly treatise." There's zero equality in it. Killing a commoner is cheaper than killing a noble. If the badly built house falls on a slave, the builder owes the owner a slave. So if the free market is an innovation like equality, and is not natural, well, fair point I guess, and natural isn't necessarily good. But was Babylon natural, anyway, or just old? The notion that the free market is natural means something. I suppose organic is the real idea there, and that makes it just another appeal for using local knowledge as opposed to insensitive central management.
- rippeltippel 11mo ago
  I think the point is to avoid roofs to fall at all: that's what anti-seismic regulations are for. They saved countless lives in places like Japan. They may not prevent all deaths, but can be an effective damage containment strategy. When an earthquake devastated the Italian city of L'Aquila, the majority of the survived buildings were those following regulations. Many houses built in the Middle Ages are gone.

dmix 11mo ago

I've often wondered how much of the western homeless crisis is due to not allowing ghettos/slums to exist, the last place the very poor could afford rent. Cities have essentially made them illegal over the past 30yrs. Once it gentrifies it's gone. Including even large blocks of subsidized apartment buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini%E2%80%93Green_Homes All housing is now very carefully planned top-down. The only ones who get past all the red tape are high end condos or far-off single-family suburbs. So city government's only idea is to force each of those fancy buildings to have a subset of units as affordable housing. The supply of those is never enough to keep up. Government made buildings now take forever or straight up fail. Out of sympathy they removed an option for the very-poor and haven't come up with a replacement solution.

card_zero 11mo ago
In rural Gabon, presumably I wouldn't be renting but would own my own unsafe shanty. It's really tempting. But living in Libreville has more of a ring to it.
kalaksi 11mo ago
> western homeless crisis Haven't really heard about this crisis. Are you referring to the US?
- SpecialistK 11mo ago
  The US and Canada (and to some extent elsewhere) have been experiencing a lot of homelessness and open air drug use due to fentanyl, housing unaffordability, and "community" mental health treatment rather than "mental hospitals."
- arjie 11mo ago
  This is primarily an anglophone board so they are (perhaps inaccurately) referring to the Anglosphere which has far worse housing performance than elsewhere https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f0b5 https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f...
- 11mo ago

baxtr 11mo ago

This outlines the problem with most regulation: There is no/litte discussion about the trade-offs. You have to see the other side, then weigh all pros and cons and then make a decision. In most cases regulation is sold as something that will improve a field with no downside at all. That’s just a lie and people find out over time.

intended 11mo ago
[flagged]
- pie_flavor 11mo ago
  You are surely not saying that because HN talks about it, it must be well-known and well-respected. Other political positions related to libertarianism, as you name it, have the exact same fate: some states respect them, others don't, and the parts of the national government lower on the totem pole than the cabinet think it's some sort of skin disease. You've never heard any mainstream pundit like John Oliver or Rachel Maddow ranting about overregulation; you've never heard anyone important in Democratic politics taking it seriously. The word 'abundance' in TFA was selected to deliberately refer to a book arguing for it, which nobody with establishment credentials had done until this year, and which is treated by the party as a brash bold unexpected controversial statement that should be treated with extreme suspicion.
- bnjms 11mo ago
  Anti regulation of a sort is still a popular position. It’s just the libertarian hands of regulation that has fallen out of favor. I don’t think it will return. At first I wasn’t sure it would stick, the name isn’t very catchy, but I’ve heard some politicians mention abundance. There is and will be more calls for corrected regulation to improve building pipelines. From the left it will be for faster procurement of public housing. It’ll look different on the right.
delusional 11mo ago
Sure, western politics doesn't discuss the problem of regulation. Sure, sure, sure. Do you live in an alternate universe? The last 30 years have been dominated by deregulation and privatization.

Gibbon1 11mo ago

I think a commonality is none of the agencies in the way feel an existential risk from failing to execute. You could imagine a system where a permit and planning department finds it's functions taken over by a minimal state agency when not enough housing is built in its area. The state of California is slowly moving that direction because it's so bad.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]