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I don't get why people lose their minds about basic economics when they talk about housing construction. It's not like you can't get bricks and concrete in the
by zcw100 5y ago
I don't get why people lose their minds about basic economics when they talk about housing construction. It's not like you can't get bricks and concrete in the US. You can, it's just going to cost you including the added labor costs.
I would also argue that old houses are not built better. The materials that you consider "better" where cheaper back when it was built. So it's not like someone back then sat around and said, like some people like to imagine, "I could use cheaper material but I like to do things right. Let's spend twice as much as we need to and future generations will thank us."
Old houses have problems as people have pointed out. Have you seen the windows on a 100 year old house, the insulation, the wiring, plumbing. I think there's also a lot of survivorship bias. You know what kind of house makes it 100 years? One that had a certain construction. What happened to all the crappy houses? They were razed or they fell apart. I also see people looking at what was a mansion, probably owned by some turn of the century robber Barron, and is now just some quirky fixer upper and saying, "They just don't build them like they used to" but that would be like moving into Jeff Bezos's mansion in 100 years and saying, "wow they just don't build them like they used it". They never built them like that. You're just looking at what's left or was worth saving.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sigstoat 5y ago> I think there's also a lot of survivorship bias. this is critical to keep in mind every time somebody is wanking about how old things are better. you only see the old things that happened to make it. the cast iron pan that happened not to have any voids near the surface, the cheap wooden furniture that happened not to have any sapwood in the pieces used for it. or whatever.