This book investigates how changes in urban life gave birth to a new occupation called code enforcement. But it is not simply about a new occupation. It is about something much more complex--how human nature adjusts to a new environment and the role of government in it. It is about the interplay between the permanent and the changing. Human nature is permanent; the city is always changing. Human nature seeks safety, order, freedom, but also beauty. These needs are hard to satisfy even within ourselves--we do not know exactly what the right balance is between order and freedom, or what kind of beauty we yearn for and how much safety can we risk for it. But it is even more challenging to reconcile these needs in the city that grows, changes, and often becomes disorderly, unsafe, and ugly. Can the always mutating city satisfy our permanent needs? Can it be made more orderly, free, safe, and beautiful at the same time? Following the history of the American city, beginning in Colonial times, the book traces urban growth and the increasing complexity it brings. It documents how the city government attempts to meet the unchanging needs of its residents. The government does what it can: it controls and regulates; it passes new laws and hires new enforcers. This is how code enforcement, as a recently added government function, appeared too. But can the government find a balance between order, beauty, safety, and freedom? Can it solve the tension between human nature and the changing urban life in which it finds itself? Is it even reasonable to expect that this tension can be eased? These historical and philosophical questions underline the exploration of the seemingly unremarkable new occupation called code enforcement.
