> So I would say that consumers could learn a thing or two. That said, most buyers are not buying newly-built homes, so their ability to influence the inclusion of some of these features are limited.

Even then I think Americans are not at all well-versed in what makes a house a good house in terms of design or aesthetic and there isn’t a marketplace that exists to help customers shop and compare.

Today, if you’re buying a new build your only option is McMansion style or just a smaller and equally distasteful version of the McMansion. And yes they are all distasteful - it’s a matter of fact, not opinion.

So most people buying new builds end up with the same cargo culled designs. And then “architects” design more and more different versions of these horrendous designs and plop in things like Sedona Avenue near the golf course and that’s how you get suburbia. There’s never a market signal, despite the fact that we can build homes much more nicely and with techniques to be a little more naturally energy efficient and kinder on the eyes.

There is also much less competition with neighborhood design though surprisingly there have been some inroads there that have fostered some competition, but it’s mostly for now for the wealthy. I live in a neighborhood designed before cars, a neighborhood that today is largely illegal to build. But the home prices are highest here because the market is demanding this type of neighborhood - single family detached homes mixed with apartments and coffee shops and small offices and restaurants. “Mixed-use development”. It’s incredibly scarce and in most American cities it has the most expensive average real estate and tends to be the most economically vibrant. Little pockets of Europe.

Neither home builders or zoning officials have taste and because as you in my view correctly acknowledge the builders are downstream of market demands, because the market doesn’t even understand what is actually good and possible, the entire industry and government regulation apparatus is downstream of the sewer.