Why ordinary Americans are prohibited from building and renovating their own homes

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

You remind me of a reverse Yakov Smirnoff.

In Russia all man chop down tree for house material. In Russia man fight bear for right of passage on eighteenth year. In Russia all men make own hospital. When Russian man break arm, he reset bone with rusted scrap metal and rags. Russian man have immunity to tetanus. Russian child walk nine kilometers to market in one meter snow for potato.

Honestly, what are Russian zoning laws like? Is it all red tape of licensed contractors, approvals, set back limits, height limits, utility placements, and inspection?

You can do it that way in rural places but even they have county or state oversight. As a country there are tons of stories of people's whose "great-grandfather built his house in 1914 for $3,000." Everyone could just do the wildcat building thing. That's no longer the norm.

* Only 45% of the 1.4 million people in my city own property. The 55% have landlords contractually obligated to maintain the premises for them.

We're just too bureaucratic and rental prone for that to still be a valid example.

Turkey also has really lax laws for home building. Just build whatever, wherever if you own the land. They forgot about The Anatolian Fault though.