Having worked in a couple of those so called advanced economies, I would say the following are the main reasons: 1) subcontractor scheduling. A plumber needs t

Having worked in a couple of those so called advanced economies, I would say the following are the main reasons: 1) subcontractor scheduling. A plumber needs to wait for the tiler to finish and the tiler needs to wait for the dryliner to finish. Multiple companies with multiple sites and multiple builders have to organise between themselves for this to happen. There are almost always delays 2) Poor management. Construction, is still often a boys club,where connections may matter more than skills, which leads to absolute planks running some sites. 3) short-termism amongst builders. Very few take their work super seriously, try to ensure it's done well, etc. More often than not, it's 'crew it, I ain't gonna live here' logic. 4) external factors: building in cities add lots of pressure on material delivery times, some major job planning, allowed noise hours and etc. In short, nobody likes a building site next door. 5) Reinventing wheel. Apart from high end, first time ever, engineering projects, majority of building are copy paste kind of thing. Principles are well known, however somehow almost each building ends up with a ton of idiotic little problems that compound very quickly. I used to work in construction some years ago.