> That sounds tremendously wasteful. All housing will have to be built new now? It is if you're building concrete houses common in much of the world. If you'r

> That sounds tremendously wasteful. All housing will have to be built new now? It is if you're building concrete houses common in much of the world. If you're building houses that are common houses in Japan, it's not nearly as bad. When you think of a house as something that not only you will live in - but also will be the vast majority of your net worth that you pass down to your children - then building houses the Western way makes more sense. When a house is just something you live in - you think of it more like renters do.