Hm. Where I live, I built my house in the country. There were no rules, no inspections except well and septic by the county health department.

Maybe other counties have the resources to create bureaucracies. But her in the Midwest there's not the budget for creating elaborate rules, much less paying inspectors.

The majority of the US population lives in places where thats not the case.

Right, right. But where you live is a choice.

Not if there are visa requirements, no non remote job opportunities, or you have all your family in the current city you live, and they are potentially ageing, and your kids are in local school, or you dont want to quit current job, or you are so broke you cant get an initial land / dwelling funds in the target location.

Any of those and youve captured most of the working population of the US.

That's again, largely choice.

Sure, some folks have a hard time choosing where to live, I get it. If we're honest, most folks just live by default wherever. They don't want to change.

And you vastly overestimate the cost of living outside major cities. It's a tiny fraction of what you might imagine.

I think I agree, if we recast it as 'inertia', it captures most of the working population of the US.

> The low trust part could mostly be a (percieved) race thing. I wont claim to understand human psychology.

Racism definitely plays a part in here ("white flight"), but it's by far not the dominant issue.

> Something relevant, a lot of the houses that were allowed to be built in the 40s would be illegal now.

Indeed, but their designs are illegal nowadays for good reasons, mostly related to fire code or structural integrity. Way too many people have literally died in their sleep in unsafe homes. Statista only goes back to 1977 for residential fire deaths, but even that shows a serious reduction of cases over the decades [1].

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/376703/us-civilian-fire-...

You have to make a choice. High homelessness, "communism", or cheap unregulated housing options.

You cant have safety and freedom.

I do think building codes are valid in cities. Outside of cities it should be a free for all, but its not.

However, building codes now are insanely overreaching. I have lived in japan for a few years and found many of the features in buildings here would never be allowed in the US. Minimum stairwell widths, door sizes, building sizes, parking lot requirements, etc. Modern Japanese buildings are probably 100 times safer but would fail american building code.

Point is if the argument is we need regulation for safety it needs to actually be for safety, and minimally.