Building code enforcement burdens and central city decline

Since the enactment: of Hammurabi's Code in ancient Babylon, building regulations have been relied upon to protect the public from the hazards of substandard building materials and slipshod construction techniques. Unnecessary building code requirements and strict enforcement practices, however, have been widely criticized for increasing the costs of new construction and rehabilitation, particularly within central cities. These burdens reduce the ability of central cities to compete successfully with surrounding suburban areas for population and economic development. In this article, we address the linkage between enforcement of building codes and construction activity. We show that central cities can capture a larger share of the marker for single-family detached housing in their metropolitan areas and also spur commercial rehabilitation if they adopt more "business-friendly" approaches to building code enforcement. These gains can be achieved without reducing the degree of compliance with building regulations as long as enforcement efforts are strong, in short, one key to increasing economic development in central cities is to foster the right kind of enforcement, rather than having weak enforcement of building regulations.