Reddit mentions of The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making (Urban and Industrial Environments)

Which are the last two? Assuming capitalist development and codes...

By far the most famous geographer studying global capitalism is David Harvey. He recently wrote The Enigma of Capital which is a pretty easy introduction to his work. I think his Spaces of Global Capitalism is a more useful summation. He's very famous for a few other books, but I think the most important work he's done is in The Limits to Capital. The last one is a tough, meticulous book. Also worth checking out is his protege Neil Smith, either his Uneven Development or for a focus on cities The New Urban Frontier.

There really are not many books that take up housing and building code specifically, though Ben-Joseph's The City of Code is a useful introduction. If you're looking for a good rant (and a reliable one) on how we got to the less-than-stellar spatial arrangements of American cities, James Howard Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere will get your blood pumping. If you're more interested in the cultural politics of place, one of my all time favorites is Landscapes of Privilege by the Duncan's.