This is a great study on people actually dying because of these problems, temporally located many decades after the most egregious problems had been prevented:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2965780/
There are similar studies for traffic and pedestrian issues due to poor zoning.
The idea that somehow one builder in competition with other builders with no enforcement is going to make appropriate safety tradeoffs everywhere they need to is untenable.
OP: “Zoning laws mean you can’t just build large volumes of cheap accommodation.”
Building codes prevent cheap housing more than zoning laws. It sure seemed like a marginally-informed rant to me.
I live on a street that attempted to convert grass-roots to a bike greenway. I don’t think I have car brain. Zoning is useful, but imperfect. It sounds like we’d agree to be against nimby residential protections of high-end housing, but that’s not what OP said. I didn’t realize OP’s post was just a dog whistle.
There are similar studies for traffic and pedestrian issues due to poor zoning.
The idea that somehow one builder in competition with other builders with no enforcement is going to make appropriate safety tradeoffs everywhere they need to is untenable.