A broader view of this point would be "the economic structures in some countries do not allow for investments with a long payback".
A broader view of this point would be "the economic structures in some countries do not allow for investments with a long payback".
Or simpler: people don't exactly want a house layout that was popular 100 years ago. And definitely not the level of insulation it provided. Nor the fact putting any new wiring and piping thru concrete is PITA
Tastes change and so do other requirements.
but, if we actually built for longevity in use, we could build a very durable shell of a house and then use more perishable but easier to modify methods for inside. Build a nice durable brick and concrete shell then use wood and plasterboard for room walls and floors
There are some downsides, but most people on the UK would prefer houses that were 100+ years old. In the village I live in the houses immediately around me are "only" 50 years old. Most of the ones on the main street are well over 100 years old.
Housing tastes don't really change that much. Yes over the years we've had to fit things like double glazing and better insulation but that's a whole lot cheaper (and better for the environment) than building a whole new building.
Having been around enough houses (in the US) to have a balanced opinion - I personally prefer older houses but
- older houses tend to be a lot more inefficient in their use of square footage
- the rooms inside tend to be a lot less open, and one man's "fun/quirky layout" is another man's "why do I have to go down a step then immediately go up a step to cross a hallway"
- and, I begrudgingly admit (as I don't like how they wreck house aesthetics) people really like big, attached garages
My overall suspicion is that when a lot of people say they like old houses, what they really mean is that they like buildings that look beautiful on the outside and, to a lesser extent, have a sense of being rooted in some kind of context.
Cupboards, nooks and crannies are one of the things people like in an old house. They are often a side-effect of chimney and fireplace construction. A new house in the UK has nowhere to put anything!
> but most people on the UK would prefer houses that were 100+ years old.
Why do most people prefer older houses?
I think two reasons:
Character and history - they tend to be more individual and different, and have more character than the cookie cutter modern mass builds.
Solidity - they tend to be more stone and brick, instead of the timber framed buildings that are more common in new builds.
Primairly because old houses are on bigger plots and allow for extensions and conversions.
ah interesting! That's quite different from the areas I've lived in the US. If you're in or near city lines the lots on older houses are small. It's not uncommon to see .15 acre lots. Newer houses aren't much better, but you can see .2 to .25 acres relatively commonly, though those are nearly always on the outer city or outside city lines so it could just be proximity to the city that's the factor there rather than age.
That is highly location dependent. Many cities had/have large lots in older neighborhoods and have transitioned to zero-lot-line construction or smaller lots in the past 30-40 years as demand for housing grew.
In fact in most of the western US that’s the norm…
The UKs green belt laws haven't helped here. Since you can't make the settlement bigger, the only course is to build in the gardens of houses with big gardens. In my view it has ruined many nice villages
I think there might be some survivorship bias there - the house that survived 100 years in state where people still want it probably was built well, the 100 years old ones that didn't were scrapped/rebuilt
In my area of the UK at least, the house layouts of houses built last year aren't appreciably different from those built 200 years ago. That's specifically comparing detached and semi-detached houses. Terraces are a bit different now.
> then use wood and plasterboard for room walls and floor
One of the things I LIKE about older houses is that the interior walls are more solid than plasterboard. There is zero plasterboard in my house and brick gives far better noise insulation than anything timber framed.
Well, better than most timber frames. If you were to ask for a truly soundproof wall you are likely to get a timber frame in two layers with rockwool fill and double thickness plasterboard.
It was also common to build lathe and plaster covered interior partitions in the past. Way before plasterboard.
A modern one off house may well have concrete block downstairs walls to hold the floor up. Albeit, they may get covered with plasterboard 'dabbed on' anyway, to reduce drying time