Bangladesh: multi-use zoning without the pesky "zoning" part

News from the libertarian, no-city-zoning paradise of Dhaka, Bangladesh: an exploding electrical transformer ignited a city block where chemicals were sold in shops below multi-story dwellings that had iron security bars over the windows and no fire escapes. Oh, and a wedding was being held on the roof of one of the buildings.

"Scores" of people died; not all of the bodies have yet been recovered; and Saturday will be a national day of mourning (BBC).

I've spent much of my post-college years as a small-business owner, and so I'm in total agreement with other entrepreneurs and businesspeople who get irritated at local regulations, zoning laws, and licensing and insurance requirements. It's a pain in the ass to spend a lot of time filling out paperwork and filing quarterly taxes when you'd rather be out making money. But just off the top of my head, I'll list the zoning laws or principles that this news article makes me really, really appreciate:

• Fire exit rules: fire doors, emergency stairwells, lighting that comes on automatically when the power goes out, multiple fire exits, smoke detectors


• Hazmat licensing rules: for vending, transporting, storing, disclosing (e.g., MSDS sheets)


• Highway rules: the width of lanes, laws for yielding to emergency vehicles, fire lanes around commercial buildings


• Rules for operating a business: licensing, bonding and insuring, permitting


• Building occupancy rules: limits on the number of people allowed to live in one dwelling or occupy a place of business at any one time

Horrific, tragic, and totally unexpected. Except that an apartment building elsewhere in Dhaka collapsed two days ago -- the owner was putting a new story on top of the building, which was located in a neighborhood of tiny streets, had been built on a former canal, and stood next to shanties, which it "toppled" onto. Nobody is sure how many people lived in the shanties or the building, but probably at least 25 people have perished (BBC).

I'm all for multi-use zoning. One, it makes for a full-service neighborhood, where you can run a bunch of disparate errands -- groceries, bookstore, dentist, hardware store, facial tattoo -- without having to walk too far, or to have to leave the neighborhood altogether. Two, it's funny to hear people thumping up and down the stairs to access the apartments above my neighborhood coffeeshop while I'm reading my most recent $4 fortune. But the operative word here is, of course, zoning. The business paperwork is irritating, and my condo fees would be lower if we didn't have have a city building code to deal with. But I think my neighbors are probably pretty happy that I'm not running "Glomarization's Corrosives, Wholesale to the Public" out of my livingroom.