Recently I went to Nepal to visit my brother Andy, who's in the Peace Corps. Among other things he took us to his villiage, Chherlung, which has no phones or electricity, and is several hours' hike to the nearest road. Financially at least, the people of Chherlung are poorer than almost anyone in Boulder. In terms of posessions that might not be true -- they have land and own homes, something lots of people can't afford to do here.
The experience really got me to thinking about what the difference is between rich and poor. People in Chherlung seem to eat pretty well; they have homes and land and own large animals. They can't even dream of affording a car or a telephone. If you rent a room in Chherlung it costs a lot less than to rent in Boulder; but wages are a lot lower too; also you're not getting heating or a refrigerator or a phone or whatever. But then, you'd feel a bit silly having all that stuff when all your neighbors are getting along just fine without it all.
Imagine what would happen if some bizarre anomaly of plate tectonics brought Boulder and Chherlung together geographically, and if the two cities were merged. If Boulder's building codes were used for the new city, all the Nepali homes would have to be torn down. The school in Chherlung doesn't even have a pit toilet -- it would definitely have to go. Most people are self-employed in Chherlung -- of course they'd have to start forking over the 15% self-employment tax. The few that are employed would have to be fired immediately, since none of them make what would be minimum wage at current exchange rates. Basically the whole town of Chherlung would become wards of the City. Roads would be put in, seized homes (there's no way they could afford the property taxes) would be auctioned off to Boulderites, and everyone would argue about whether a Safeway or a string of second-hand furniture stores would be more appropriate for the newly available real estate.
Of course that's an absurd scenario (I mean besides the bit about plate tectonics). If that really happened it would be blatantly obvious that applying Boulder's laws to a third world villiage would utterly destroy it and take away the residents' rights, property, and self-determination. But this is exactly what we do to our own poor -- the homeless live in the streets because they can't afford the ridiculously high standards that middle class voters compassionately enforce on them. Rather than actually help the poor, we hide them away by attempting to legislate their lifestyle out of existence. In the third world the poor sleep in shacks on their own land; in the first world they live in the street because we are too compassionate to allow them to live in shacks.
Nepali homes are what we would call "slums", technically. They can be beautiful, clean, and spacious, but they are "substandard" by 1000 different standards encoded in Boulder law. Our middle class supports governement enforcement of minimum standards in so many areas of life and economy, that seem reasonable on the surface, but are absurdly luxurious by global standards: minimum wages, working conditions, day care conditions, food and drug standards. That would be fine if we really were a first world country, but that's a lie we tell ourselves. We have very poor people here, just as poor as in Nepal, if not as many. People don't get trapped on welfare because the payments are a disincentive to work, or because they're lazy, or immoral, or raised by a single parent. They're trapped because we've set the bar to entry into the economy at first world levels, and the economically third-world living among us simply can't reach the doorstep.
My suggestion is: if we are concerned that someone has to live in a hovel, let's find some way of providing the person with better options, rather than banning the option they do have. Forcing a builder to upgrade materials and facilities to meet codes means one more home for the rich, not better quality housing for the poor. As long as cheap homes are illegal in Boulder, it will remain an exclusive, wealthy enclave.