First to D.C. residents, but perhaps to any of you living in major urban areas.

I want to write a piece on absurd regulations/licencing requirements/hassles that come with living under nightmarishly bureaucratic, quasi-corrupt (or outright corrupt) city government.

For example, a married couple I know here in D.C. had to sell their house to move across the country. When they first moved in, they had installed a valve on their water heater that was both more durable and more efficient than the valve that came with the house. Unfortunately, the more durable, more efficient valve wasn’t licensed by the city, so they had to buy and reinstall the less durable, less efficient valve model before they could legally sell their house.

That’s the kind of thing I’m looking for. I’m guessing most everyone has a story or two like this.

I’d like to keep the focus on D.C., but examples from other cities would be helpful, too. You can leave stories in the comments section or email them to me.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2003 at 11:33 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.