The part when I first started to think about those is where Wheelan is saying that in some parts of the world some kinds of architectural committee tell you which colour your house can or can not be painted.
I'll describe what is so frustrating about it in an example from Slovakia.
Sixty years ago there was a big urban boom in Slovakia. Most of the population was moving from small villages to big cities like Bratislava. The government needed to deal with it quickly so they started to build tall apartment houses in the outskirts of Bratislava. They were built from cement and were very weakly built in terms of heat conservation. During the summer they let in a lot of heat and during the winter a lot of cold. They were all grey.
Sixty years later Bratislava needed to deal with this problem. They started to cover them with thermoregulation substances to make them more suitable for living. One apartment building like this can have up to twelve gates and all at once every gate was supposed to agree on a colour (or more colours) that their gate is going to be painted on. Nobody was thinking abut matching other gates and now you have nearly 28,68 km2 crowded with apartment building and everyone of them is painted in ten different colours according to gate community decision.
A lot of people like me believe that it looks awful. We would like to have them all painted in saddle colours like grey again. Other people love it and are happy that it does not remind them of communism.
Now what is the role of government in this situation? Is it positive or negative externality?
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