(04-29-2013 10:06 PM)Machiavelli Wrote: What kind of building codes exist in red states? Seriously. How can that fertilizer plant in Texas be right next to a school. What if that explosion happened 12 hours later? Do you think that would be possible in a blue state. I was watching Duck Dynasty the other day and Jase put on an office right next to Willie. No permits. No footer. Do you think you could just put up a stck built office without a footer in a blue state? I vacationed in Tennessee for a golf trip. There was no central planning. You would have a drive thru right next to a mansion right next to a 10,000 trailer right next to a laundry mat. You could tell there were no building zones. In blue states we have that. We have regulations, codes, and zones. This is what Robert is getting at. A buddy of mine went to the Masters this year. He couldn't believe the dump surrounding Augusta. His words It was hillbilly heaven 1/2 mile outside the C.C. with fast food joints. You wouldn't have that in a blue state. It would all be residential surrounding it.
You are lumping together various types of regulation--safety (building codes), land use (zoning), and others that have no relationship to each other. As for the fertilizer plant, it was built there when it was out in the country, and then the town moved toward it, according to several friends from the area. The school was built close to the plant, not vice versa, probably because they got the land cheap. That's not due to any failure to regulate, nor to any wrongdoing on the part of the plant. What do you expect the plant to do? Incur the cost of shutting down and moving because someone built close to them? That's on the school district, and has nothing to do with regulation. How would regulation have changed that, given that schools pretty much get any variance they ask for in any jurisdiction in the country? Moreover, because of sovereign immunity, it likely wouldn't be possible to sue the school district for any negligence on their part in locating the school there.
Limits on economic regulation have nothing to do with safety regulations. You can have all the safety regulations you want. Just make sure 1) they actually impact safety, 2) they are not some hidden agenda disguised under the notion of safety. Zoning regulations have long been used to segregate races, in places like Boston as much as, or more than, anywhere in the south. Building codes in places like Chicago serve as a prime generator of money for the political machine--pay off the right people and they'll sign off on your plan. OSHA safety regulations are counterproductive about as often as they are useful, particularly when opportunity costs are considered; OSHA is always forcing companies to spend $100,000 here to prevent maybe 1 accident per decade, whereas the same $100,000 could have saved far more accidents, and more serious ones, if it had been spent elsewhere, and would have been spent there if it had been up to the company instead of the OSHA inspectors. I have a friend who works as an engineer for a large unnamed petrochemical company. OSHA was requiring them to make a very expensive modification to achieve a certain safety objective. He proposed a cheaper and more effective alternative to his boss. The reply, good idea, but we are not going to suggest this. We can afford to make the change OSHA wants, but our competitors cannot. So forcing this change will drive them out of business and allow us to increase our profit margins.
As far as the mix of land uses, I actually like that. At least you can find some place to get a burger if you are hungry. When I travel to those heavily regulated areas you love, it takes forever to find a drug store or restaurant when you want or need one. I'll take Washington Avenue over the Chicago (or Boston) suburbs, any day.
The left seems to have this idea that "regulation" is some sort of monolithic cure for all evils. "The bank crash would not have happened if the banks had not been deregulated." Except 1) the banks were not deregulated, but in fact remained one of the heaviest regulated sectors of the entire economy, and 2) nobody has actually proposed any regulations that would have made a difference--except for my own proposals, which were shot down by Chris Dodd after Countrywide bought him off. "If there weren't fast food restaurants up and down Washington Avenue in front of Augusta National, somehow the West, Texas, disaster wouldn't have happened." (OK, I'm taking some license there, but that's what your comments literally imply. I've been both places, and there is no connection.) Some regulation is good. Much regulation is at best neutral, although even the regulation that nets neutral results comes at a cost that is a negative. And there is regulation that is clearly counterproductive.
Nobody is arguing to do away with the good regulation. There is an argument to weigh carefully the costs and benefits, and separate good regulation from bad. The difference between left and right is not that the right wants to get rid of good regulation, but that the left does not want to get rid of bad regulation--or even make an assessment to determine which regulations do more good than harm and which do more harm than good.
