I visited a friend of mine out in Lancashire in the UK one time after I had just bought a home on the west coast. I mentioned that my home was quite old: It was a craftsman built in 1908. My friend quipped that his home was one of the newest on his street, at 250 years and counting.
On the one hand, I absolutely love the idea of creating lasting structures that stand the test of time and can serve many generations of people. That seems reasonable and cost-effective from a long-term perspective.
On the other hand, I also visited Japan and I learned that people generally tear down their houses and rebuild from scratch every 20-30 years. I don't know all the details about how this system came to be, but someone told me it was for a few reasons: One, lots of earthquakes meant making housing more cheap and replaceable reduced the impact of the shakes. Two, the financing structures are impacted by the Georgian land-value taxation system Japan implements, meaning almost everywhere the land on which the building sits is 10-1000x more valuable than any building could be. And three, the idea that future generations will have different needs and wants, and so having a house built hundreds of years ago that's perfectly fine structurally but ill-suited to modern living is an outcome to be avoided.
That also hearkens to something Joel Salatin said about how he thinks about building capex on his farm: He plans for any given structure to last 20-30 years. If it makes it that long, it's almost certain the farm's needs have changed enough that you'd want to tear it down anyways.
I don't think there's an obvious answer here, and maybe it's like most things: The best solution is a variety of solutions.
On the one hand, I absolutely love the idea of creating lasting structures that stand the test of time and can serve many generations of people. That seems reasonable and cost-effective from a long-term perspective.
On the other hand, I also visited Japan and I learned that people generally tear down their houses and rebuild from scratch every 20-30 years. I don't know all the details about how this system came to be, but someone told me it was for a few reasons: One, lots of earthquakes meant making housing more cheap and replaceable reduced the impact of the shakes. Two, the financing structures are impacted by the Georgian land-value taxation system Japan implements, meaning almost everywhere the land on which the building sits is 10-1000x more valuable than any building could be. And three, the idea that future generations will have different needs and wants, and so having a house built hundreds of years ago that's perfectly fine structurally but ill-suited to modern living is an outcome to be avoided.
That also hearkens to something Joel Salatin said about how he thinks about building capex on his farm: He plans for any given structure to last 20-30 years. If it makes it that long, it's almost certain the farm's needs have changed enough that you'd want to tear it down anyways.
I don't think there's an obvious answer here, and maybe it's like most things: The best solution is a variety of solutions.