Why Does the U.S. Make Building So Expensive? Ever wonder why installing an elevator in the U.S. costs three times more than in Switzerland? Or why we force small apartment buildings to have two staircases when other countries safely build with one? Turns out, much of our building code isn’t based on hard data—it’s a patchwork of well-meaning but costly decisions. A fire marshal in Arizona once thought elevators should be bigger, and overnight, the rulebook changed. The impact? Higher costs with no real proof of benefits. Stephen Smith and the Center for Building in North America are digging into these regulations and asking a simple question: What if we could build smarter, cheaper, and just as safe—without pointless complexity? The real barrier to affordability isn’t a lack of technology or labor. It’s rules that don’t make sense anymore. https://lnkd.in/ezbjAXmS