alt Hacker NewsIf you just look at hard costs and ignore beauty and comfort, is it also the cost-over-what-timeframe question? If a building is expected to be actively used for 100 years vs 20, you get to different decisions.
My other question that I've never found a good answer to, is with mechanization, how is it that "cheap" modern buildings are so expensive. Or were old, traditional buildings super expensive? What is the cost of a unit of beauty per year, then and now...?
Unfortunately only custom homes can afford to care about beauty. Developers are building for cheapest possible and letting the long term owners deal with the consequences.
Homes still aren’t really mechanized. I’ve seen attempts but they haven’t worked well yet. Labor and materials are so expensive!
And most new homes are built by one of a few big groups. Oligopoly issues again.