New York's Quiet Code Revolution

"New York City has embarked on the most comprehensive rewriting of its building, fire, plumbing and electrical codes since they were first adopted more than a century ago.This quiet revolution will alter the city's inner landscape, from life-and-death details like fire sprinklers and the lighting in emergency stairways to mundane matters...the most surprising change is that New York is abandoning many of the intricate restrictions, carefully tailored to its quirks and jealously defended over the decades, that have made its codes a byzantine patchwork and have made the city one of the most difficult and expensive in which to put up a building. The city, in fact, is tossing out all of those codes, adopting standard codes in effect across the nation, then adding back pieces of the old rules as needed."

Thanks to The Practice of New Urbanism