Yes, risk is always balanced against potential gain. And yes, the individual is the one who ultimately pays the price. So he should make the choices.
But I believe that even in a completely free market, there would be a lot of local voluntary contractual arrangements that would regulate many aspects of very small communities and building codes are certainly one thing people would consider when making such an arrangement.
As long as communities are competitive and contracts cannot be changed arbitrarily, this is not a problem. And if such contracts were not beneficial, these arrangements would lose to more sensible ones.
So, I'm not too concerned about what local governments do. Overall I think it maps to what we'd have in a free market, except where cities get too big and corruption becomes a problem.
One could easily argue that there is a worse safety/cost effectiveness tradeoff when you have to pay for corruption. Certainly when the average person is poorer than they would otherwise be, safety is harder to afford.
The important thing is competition and if you can drive 4 minutes in the opposite direction and get the community you want, competition exists.
Just as there is competition in automobile safety, there should be competition in community safety. Yes, there are national regulations, but I would argue that most cars exceed those regulation and brag about their 5-star crash ratings. Such would also be the case for communities designed by the Mercedes' and Toyotas of the community regulation business, should such brands be permitted to evolve.
But I believe that even in a completely free market, there would be a lot of local voluntary contractual arrangements that would regulate many aspects of very small communities and building codes are certainly one thing people would consider when making such an arrangement.
As long as communities are competitive and contracts cannot be changed arbitrarily, this is not a problem. And if such contracts were not beneficial, these arrangements would lose to more sensible ones.
So, I'm not too concerned about what local governments do. Overall I think it maps to what we'd have in a free market, except where cities get too big and corruption becomes a problem.
One could easily argue that there is a worse safety/cost effectiveness tradeoff when you have to pay for corruption. Certainly when the average person is poorer than they would otherwise be, safety is harder to afford.
The important thing is competition and if you can drive 4 minutes in the opposite direction and get the community you want, competition exists.