“Can a Town Survive With Nearly No Government?”
I don’t know, why don’t you ask the bulk of American history? Seriously, for the longest time we had no standing army, no police force, and no government currency, let alone highways, utilities, setback variances, and ordinances about everything under the sun.
We also did not provide free homes, food, education, medical care, etc.
For over 150 years we seems to beat the heck out of every other country.
It has simply been in the last 50 years we have tried to duplicate the failure of every society before us.
Many of those things make a lot of sense, since they benefit virtually every citizen, and thus can reasonably fit under the "general welfare" clause. In this era, ad hoc armies would be useless against well-organized standing armies funded by other countries' large governments. And police are generally a good way to bring an objective third party into conflicts that really do need intervention. Government currency is basically the same issue as a standing army -- if no country of significant size had a government-issued currency, we might be able to do fine without it, but that isn't the case and isn't going to be, and we'd be economically screwed if we didn't have one. Interstate highways are also great promoters of commerce, benefitting everyone, not just those who drive on them. I really like being able to order something from the cheapest online source and have it arrive on my doorstep quickly and at very low cost, and the manufacturers and sellers of those items likewise benefit from this. And people in rural areas or towns far from big cities greatly benefit when they need an ambulance to ferry them to a distant hospital for treatments not available locally.
But yes, the goofy ordinances and building code provisions are insane and totally out of control (not to mention the insanely complicated and intrusive federal and state, and increasingly local, tax codes). These aren't just interfering with basic freedoms, but also interfering with commerce and the overall economic strength of the nation, as people are forced to spend money on, and other people are thus induced to focus their labor on, things which provide no real benefit to anyone. Worst of all, they're pushing a lot of people into economic dependency on government, who would be perfectly able to support themselves if they were allowed to do things like build their own shelter as best they can and live in it, just like the pioneers did. Instead, we actually have government forcibly removing people from homes that pose no actual danger at all, and putting them in taxpayer-subsidized public housing. And landlords are bullied by government under threats of huge fines and property liens and even arrest, into "updating" rental units to meet all the latest building codes, thus driving the rental price they must charge out of the reach of many people who need affordable rental housing.
I guess this would make an interesting thread...what should local governments be required to provide?