alt Hacker News"upkeep and maintenance" is largely composed of people costs – the people doing the upkeep and maintenance.
indeed, that's the case for many businesses, even with little-to-no regulation, so it's hard to agree with your opinion there.
e.g. most of the cost of hiring a plumber is a "cost of people" – buying torch fuel and fittings is a much smaller fraction of it.
I guess I should separate what I mean by this. If you need plumbing work usually you have to pull permits from the city, depending on where you live that could be a small portion of the cost or a large majority of the cost. I am not advocating for the removal of say skilled operators and technicians. I am against overwhelming bureaucracy with paper documents lengthy processing times and fringe regulations.
The biggest issues people usually have with any construction work is dealing with the city/county because they throw up the most roadblocks and you do not have the freedom to choose, in the case that there is no free market available the regulation must be good, cheap and efficient, a bit off topic but alas