@feld @pony @RedOct The poor insulation then makes city living less desirable because street noise filters into the buildings; every time I visit New York I have to deal with way worse noise than I have at home with the windows closed, and I live next to an elevated train in an extremely touristy area. But *none* of this gets resolved through taxing landlords (who then pass the tax on to the renters) - the US and Canada need to Europeanize their building codes.