7 ms·

This article seems to be putting on some strong rose-colored glasses. It appeals to the idea that people in the past all lived in beautiful, long-lasting buildi

This article seems to be putting on some strong rose-colored glasses. It appeals to the idea that people in the past all lived in beautiful, long-lasting buildings. The reality is that the long-lasting buildings are the only ones that still exist. The bulk of humanity has always lived in cheap construction. Affordable housing is not a bad thing, especially with modern fire codes. The last paragraph starts with "For centuries the quality of their buildings and a certain permanence set cities apart". That's a really good joke. The author even points to this earlier with "The sameness [of 1+5s] isn't like East Berlin's "Plattenbauten" (precast concrete buildings) around Alexanderplatz, nor has it the uniformity of some of Baltimore's rowhouse neighborhoods." I'm legitimately not sure whether those cheaply constructed neighborhoods are supposed to be positive examples or not.

OedipusRex 8y ago
Sameness at scale.
NickM 8y ago
This article seems to be putting on some strong rose-colored glasses. It appeals to the idea that people in the past all lived in beautiful, long-lasting buildings. The reality is that the long-lasting buildings are the only ones that still exist. Well sure, but at least some houses used to be beautiful and long-lasting; nowadays, even large, expensive mansions are typically built in a cheap, slapdash manner, using techniques and materials that are not nearly as long-lasting or durable as the ones that would've been used to build a nice house a century ago. For a really obvious example, just look at roofing materials; a good slate roof can last over a century with minimal maintenance, but nobody builds houses with slate roofs anymore. Instead, even high-end homes use asphalt shingles that last 20-30 years tops.
- peteradio 8y ago
  Steel roofing is becoming more and more common. Wonder what the expected life expectancy is on those bad boys.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    50+ years.
    - matthewaveryusa 8y ago
      Driving through Eastern europe and in the Alps I noticed that they are very popular -- was wondering if it was a cost thing or if they are simply better in colder/harsher climates -- my guess is both.
      - dublinben 8y ago
        Steel roofs are particularly well-suited to areas that receive heavy snowfall. The snow tends to slide right off, instead of dangerously accumulating on an asphalt roof.
        dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        Have steel roof, can confirm. It makes a satisfying sliding then silence then thump noise. It makes shoveling a path adjacent to the house kind of a pain because you have to shovel it after snow falls and then again after the snow falls from the roof. Shoveling snow is also a lot more interesting when you have to listen for the sliding sound and GTFO or hug the house if you hear it. Overall 10/10.
        rconti 8y ago
        Or a popping, followed by an entire-house-shaking moment of terror. This one wasn't actually that bad from a shaking standpoint, but still caught me off guard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDKoiwUk1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDKoiwUk1M
- pixl97 8y ago
  >So one hard or soft slate for each square foot of your house times $1,500 will be total cost of a new slate roof. Asphalt shingles have a total cost around $200 per square. Well, yea slate roofs cost 7X as much. No wonder people don't.
  - NickM 8y ago
    Well yeah, nowadays contractors can charge through the nose when hardly anyone even has the necessary skills to maintain existing slate roofs anymore, much less install new ones. It didn't always used to be like that, though. The material cost is more, of course, but not nearly 7X more.
- darkerside 8y ago
  So you oppose the democratization of luxury?
  - linkmotif 8y ago
    Haha I think the point is you can’t democratize luxury. That’s a shill, an oxymoron. What you get is literal vuglarity.
    - darkerside 8y ago
      That's an overload of the term luxury. Is air conditioning a luxury? Depends on what you mean by it. What I mean by it in this case is, we are able to support economically many more people having mansions than we used to. The trade-off is they rightfully earn the prefix of Mc.
      - linkmotif 8y ago
        > we are able to support economically many more people having mansions than we used to I don't think that's true... the environmental cost of supporting this is huge and already unsustainable. Air conditioning is a great example of this.
- kazen44 8y ago
  is this actually true though? Most older long-lasting buildings seem to either be build for industrial/economic use or are goverment/public project kind of works. Also, most normal housing was of dubious quality all throughout history, there is a reason many european cities decided to level vast parts of their working class housing districts after ww2. Mainly because it was far easier to start over (thanks to ww2 damage) and because most of these housing where simply to cheap to be worth restoring.
  - NickM 8y ago
    Yes, absolutely. I live in a city with a ton of old freestanding houses that were built around 1900, and they're incredibly sturdy. You can see this all throughout the construction: The frames are built from really thick wooden beams that can take a beating. I had a large tree fall on my house earlier this year, and the trunk bounced/slid off, doing only superficial damage to the roof and siding; I talked to multiple contractors and insurance people who said a newer house built using modern construction standards would've been flattened, or at least suffered serious structural damage. Things like windows are built to last too. The original wooden sash cord designs are still functioning 100+ years after they were built, with the exception of a couple windows that needed the cords replaced, but that's relatively cheap and easy. I expect the same windows will continue to work another 100 years as long as they're cared for and maintained. This isn't about "the democratization of luxury", as another commenter suggested. Cheap construction costs more in the long term. This is about a cultural shift toward favoring short-term over long-term thinking. Long-lasting wood sash cord windows would not be expensive to build in this day and age, and they could be quite energy efficient too with modern glass and weather stripping, but people don't think or care about the long term the way they used to, and so they'd would rather settle for cheap, shiny vinyl windows that yellow and crack and fall apart in a matter of decades.
    - Jarb 8y ago
      Slight rant, but those types of windows were one of the first things that bugged me when I moved over from Europe. IMO, not only are they not as practical, but they also leak more energy than what we had in Germany. You can't poke your head out all the way and need to bend over awkwardly to get some fresh air. It would be one thing if it was only on older houses, but new ones use them as well. By contrast, even my grandparent's house, built in the 50s, had windows that swung open like a door or leaned inwards at ~10°, if you only wanted a little bit of a breeze. They even had windows built into the roof that could be opened either in the middle or from the top, thanks to dual hinges. Best part, the "Rolladen", aka roll-up blinds built into the walls that helped with heat-retention in the winter, provided sound-dampening, and could be automated by a timer. Maybe it's just the area where I live, but I get the feeling that for many architectural features in the states we decided about 100 years that everything is good enough as it is and the only continued innovation was geared towards cutting corners and getting cheaper materials to work. /rant 0 https://goo.gl/images/QS5oJj https://goo.gl/images/QS5oJj https://goo.gl/images/1nRYHt https://goo.gl/images/1nRYHt https://goo.gl/images/kDVPkv https://goo.gl/images/kDVPkv https://goo.gl/images/TfDtoK https://goo.gl/images/TfDtoK
- ticmasta 8y ago
  Tile is also a long-lasting option that's cheaper than slate. The issues are not purely material costs though but supply, specialized labour, environmental factors, etc.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    Isn't tile a problem in an area that gets hailstorms?
matthewaveryusa 8y ago
Agreed, there's a bit of survivorship bias. For an idea of poor construction in the 19th century, look at some of the streets pre-Hausmann's renovation of Paris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...
- Terr_ 8y ago
  > The Bievre river was used to dump the waste from the tanneries of Paris; it emptied into the Seine. Even before reading the caption, that picture -- absent any obvious tourist landmarks -- immediately made me think of the same location rendered in one of the Assassin's Creed games... I can't tell whether that's funny, sad, or bizarrely positive. Maybe all three.
gwbas1c 8y ago
Quality construction still occurs... You just need to pay for it!
oftenwrong 8y ago
A common type of residential structure where I live is the three-decker. They were built of the cheapest construction of their time, and yes, they are quite flammable. Given the comparatively-lax regulations that existed when three-deckers were built, they have achieved residential density that is hard to beat with new buildings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house)
- Aardwolf 8y ago
  Three floors is popular in (western) Europe too for apartments because it's the highest where an elevator is not mandatory (but they're usually not made out of wood here... except if e.g. it's a chalet in the mountains)
  - oftenwrong 8y ago
    In NYC you can find 7th-floor "walk-up" apartments, although most buildings without elevators stop at 5 or 6 floors.
    - jandrese 8y ago
      Well, at least you would be fit.
      - njarboe 8y ago
        Or never leave your place with modern remote work and anything can be delivered ethos.
TimJYoung 8y ago
I know that you're probably talking a lot older than one century, but as a minor counterpoint: Our house (in Buffalo, NY area) turned 100 this year, and there are thousands of houses just like it in the Buffalo area. In fact, most of the housing that was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s is still standing: https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2015/06/28/oldhomes1.html https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2015/06/28/oldhomes... I think our house could easily go another 100 years with the proper maintenance.
- JackFr 8y ago
  > In fact, most of the housing that was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s is still standing. I don't think that the linked article actually says that. What it does say is that Buffalo has the oldest housing stock in the country with a median construction year of 1954. I would guess that to be mostly an artifact of the declining population of the area, which peaked between 1960 and 1970.
  - TimJYoung 8y ago
    Yeah, I kind of conflated my anecdote with the reference in support of my anecdote. I'll have to see if I can dig up more data on this. As for population, you have to be careful with the statistics on this because, while the area did lose population since the 70s, there was also a lot of flight from the city to the suburbs over the same time period. So, it is often more instructive to look at the total population of western NY instead of just the city of Buffalo.
- kazen44 8y ago
  the issue with old housing in the end is simply heat isolation. Old houses leak away alot of heat (especially if deep cracks are present in the brick and mortar, which is very expensive to fix). Which in term will mean you pay a significant amount of extra cash to keep the heat on. Renovation is possible ofcourse, but not always worth it?
  - TimJYoung 8y ago
habitue 8y ago
I think the author's annoyance stems from the fact that these buildings attempt to look stylish and high class, but are made cheaply. It's kind of upper-class annoyance that lower-class people are getting something that looks nice. Ultimately, like certificates of authenticity on diamonds, the upper class will settle on some easily identified but hard to fake styles for expensive homes, and the cycle will repeat.
- supertrope 8y ago
  Biologists call this "honest signaling." Cryptocurrency advocates call it "proof of work." Essentially wasting resources to prove that you can.
wahern 8y ago
> The bulk of humanity has always lived in cheap construction Yes, but when older homes were built labor (even highly skilled labor) was comparatively much cheaper and lumber came from old-growth trees. Most homes built today (cheap or not) will literally begin to fall apart in months if they're not kept temperature and humidity controlled. To build a house today using a mix of modern technology (electrical, plumbing, foundation, etc) with the quality of wood and finishing used in older homes would be very expensive compared to typical construction, even in high-end developments.

OedipusRex 8y ago

Sameness at scale.

NickM 8y ago

This article seems to be putting on some strong rose-colored glasses. It appeals to the idea that people in the past all lived in beautiful, long-lasting buildings. The reality is that the long-lasting buildings are the only ones that still exist. Well sure, but at least some houses used to be beautiful and long-lasting; nowadays, even large, expensive mansions are typically built in a cheap, slapdash manner, using techniques and materials that are not nearly as long-lasting or durable as the ones that would've been used to build a nice house a century ago. For a really obvious example, just look at roofing materials; a good slate roof can last over a century with minimal maintenance, but nobody builds houses with slate roofs anymore. Instead, even high-end homes use asphalt shingles that last 20-30 years tops.

peteradio 8y ago
Steel roofing is becoming more and more common. Wonder what the expected life expectancy is on those bad boys.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  50+ years.
  - matthewaveryusa 8y ago
    Driving through Eastern europe and in the Alps I noticed that they are very popular -- was wondering if it was a cost thing or if they are simply better in colder/harsher climates -- my guess is both.
    - dublinben 8y ago
      Steel roofs are particularly well-suited to areas that receive heavy snowfall. The snow tends to slide right off, instead of dangerously accumulating on an asphalt roof.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        Have steel roof, can confirm. It makes a satisfying sliding then silence then thump noise. It makes shoveling a path adjacent to the house kind of a pain because you have to shovel it after snow falls and then again after the snow falls from the roof. Shoveling snow is also a lot more interesting when you have to listen for the sliding sound and GTFO or hug the house if you hear it. Overall 10/10.
        rconti 8y ago
        Or a popping, followed by an entire-house-shaking moment of terror. This one wasn't actually that bad from a shaking standpoint, but still caught me off guard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDKoiwUk1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDKoiwUk1M
pixl97 8y ago
>So one hard or soft slate for each square foot of your house times $1,500 will be total cost of a new slate roof. Asphalt shingles have a total cost around $200 per square. Well, yea slate roofs cost 7X as much. No wonder people don't.
- NickM 8y ago
  Well yeah, nowadays contractors can charge through the nose when hardly anyone even has the necessary skills to maintain existing slate roofs anymore, much less install new ones. It didn't always used to be like that, though. The material cost is more, of course, but not nearly 7X more.
darkerside 8y ago
So you oppose the democratization of luxury?
- linkmotif 8y ago
  Haha I think the point is you can’t democratize luxury. That’s a shill, an oxymoron. What you get is literal vuglarity.
  - darkerside 8y ago
    That's an overload of the term luxury. Is air conditioning a luxury? Depends on what you mean by it. What I mean by it in this case is, we are able to support economically many more people having mansions than we used to. The trade-off is they rightfully earn the prefix of Mc.
    - linkmotif 8y ago
      > we are able to support economically many more people having mansions than we used to I don't think that's true... the environmental cost of supporting this is huge and already unsustainable. Air conditioning is a great example of this.
kazen44 8y ago
is this actually true though? Most older long-lasting buildings seem to either be build for industrial/economic use or are goverment/public project kind of works. Also, most normal housing was of dubious quality all throughout history, there is a reason many european cities decided to level vast parts of their working class housing districts after ww2. Mainly because it was far easier to start over (thanks to ww2 damage) and because most of these housing where simply to cheap to be worth restoring.
- NickM 8y ago
  Yes, absolutely. I live in a city with a ton of old freestanding houses that were built around 1900, and they're incredibly sturdy. You can see this all throughout the construction: The frames are built from really thick wooden beams that can take a beating. I had a large tree fall on my house earlier this year, and the trunk bounced/slid off, doing only superficial damage to the roof and siding; I talked to multiple contractors and insurance people who said a newer house built using modern construction standards would've been flattened, or at least suffered serious structural damage. Things like windows are built to last too. The original wooden sash cord designs are still functioning 100+ years after they were built, with the exception of a couple windows that needed the cords replaced, but that's relatively cheap and easy. I expect the same windows will continue to work another 100 years as long as they're cared for and maintained. This isn't about "the democratization of luxury", as another commenter suggested. Cheap construction costs more in the long term. This is about a cultural shift toward favoring short-term over long-term thinking. Long-lasting wood sash cord windows would not be expensive to build in this day and age, and they could be quite energy efficient too with modern glass and weather stripping, but people don't think or care about the long term the way they used to, and so they'd would rather settle for cheap, shiny vinyl windows that yellow and crack and fall apart in a matter of decades.
  - Jarb 8y ago
    Slight rant, but those types of windows were one of the first things that bugged me when I moved over from Europe. IMO, not only are they not as practical, but they also leak more energy than what we had in Germany. You can't poke your head out all the way and need to bend over awkwardly to get some fresh air. It would be one thing if it was only on older houses, but new ones use them as well. By contrast, even my grandparent's house, built in the 50s, had windows that swung open like a door or leaned inwards at ~10°, if you only wanted a little bit of a breeze. They even had windows built into the roof that could be opened either in the middle or from the top, thanks to dual hinges. Best part, the "Rolladen", aka roll-up blinds built into the walls that helped with heat-retention in the winter, provided sound-dampening, and could be automated by a timer. Maybe it's just the area where I live, but I get the feeling that for many architectural features in the states we decided about 100 years that everything is good enough as it is and the only continued innovation was geared towards cutting corners and getting cheaper materials to work. /rant 0 https://goo.gl/images/QS5oJj https://goo.gl/images/QS5oJj https://goo.gl/images/1nRYHt https://goo.gl/images/1nRYHt https://goo.gl/images/kDVPkv https://goo.gl/images/kDVPkv https://goo.gl/images/TfDtoK https://goo.gl/images/TfDtoK
ticmasta 8y ago
Tile is also a long-lasting option that's cheaper than slate. The issues are not purely material costs though but supply, specialized labour, environmental factors, etc.
- jandrese 8y ago
  Isn't tile a problem in an area that gets hailstorms?

matthewaveryusa 8y ago

Agreed, there's a bit of survivorship bias. For an idea of poor construction in the 19th century, look at some of the streets pre-Hausmann's renovation of Paris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...

Terr_ 8y ago
> The Bievre river was used to dump the waste from the tanneries of Paris; it emptied into the Seine. Even before reading the caption, that picture -- absent any obvious tourist landmarks -- immediately made me think of the same location rendered in one of the Assassin's Creed games... I can't tell whether that's funny, sad, or bizarrely positive. Maybe all three.

gwbas1c 8y ago

Quality construction still occurs... You just need to pay for it!

oftenwrong 8y ago

A common type of residential structure where I live is the three-decker. They were built of the cheapest construction of their time, and yes, they are quite flammable. Given the comparatively-lax regulations that existed when three-deckers were built, they have achieved residential density that is hard to beat with new buildings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house)

Aardwolf 8y ago
Three floors is popular in (western) Europe too for apartments because it's the highest where an elevator is not mandatory (but they're usually not made out of wood here... except if e.g. it's a chalet in the mountains)
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  In NYC you can find 7th-floor "walk-up" apartments, although most buildings without elevators stop at 5 or 6 floors.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    Well, at least you would be fit.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      Or never leave your place with modern remote work and anything can be delivered ethos.

TimJYoung 8y ago

I know that you're probably talking a lot older than one century, but as a minor counterpoint: Our house (in Buffalo, NY area) turned 100 this year, and there are thousands of houses just like it in the Buffalo area. In fact, most of the housing that was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s is still standing: https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2015/06/28/oldhomes1.html https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2015/06/28/oldhomes... I think our house could easily go another 100 years with the proper maintenance.

JackFr 8y ago
> In fact, most of the housing that was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s is still standing. I don't think that the linked article actually says that. What it does say is that Buffalo has the oldest housing stock in the country with a median construction year of 1954. I would guess that to be mostly an artifact of the declining population of the area, which peaked between 1960 and 1970.
- TimJYoung 8y ago
  Yeah, I kind of conflated my anecdote with the reference in support of my anecdote. I'll have to see if I can dig up more data on this. As for population, you have to be careful with the statistics on this because, while the area did lose population since the 70s, there was also a lot of flight from the city to the suburbs over the same time period. So, it is often more instructive to look at the total population of western NY instead of just the city of Buffalo.
kazen44 8y ago
the issue with old housing in the end is simply heat isolation. Old houses leak away alot of heat (especially if deep cracks are present in the brick and mortar, which is very expensive to fix). Which in term will mean you pay a significant amount of extra cash to keep the heat on. Renovation is possible ofcourse, but not always worth it?
- TimJYoung 8y ago

habitue 8y ago

I think the author's annoyance stems from the fact that these buildings attempt to look stylish and high class, but are made cheaply. It's kind of upper-class annoyance that lower-class people are getting something that looks nice. Ultimately, like certificates of authenticity on diamonds, the upper class will settle on some easily identified but hard to fake styles for expensive homes, and the cycle will repeat.

supertrope 8y ago
Biologists call this "honest signaling." Cryptocurrency advocates call it "proof of work." Essentially wasting resources to prove that you can.

wahern 8y ago

> The bulk of humanity has always lived in cheap construction Yes, but when older homes were built labor (even highly skilled labor) was comparatively much cheaper and lumber came from old-growth trees. Most homes built today (cheap or not) will literally begin to fall apart in months if they're not kept temperature and humidity controlled. To build a house today using a mix of modern technology (electrical, plumbing, foundation, etc) with the quality of wood and finishing used in older homes would be very expensive compared to typical construction, even in high-end developments.