@Talia @ChrisMayLA6 I think it's a side-effect of real estate being a long-term financialized asset bubble, which has in turn made demolition/reconstruction "affordable" (by making the land asset a colateral for immense loans, against which the cost of construction is lost in the small print).

But … Germany is big on demolition/replacement of housing stock? But always with better environmental standards. And most people rent their homes, and houses are depreciating assets.

@cstross @ChrisMayLA6 yes, hard agree

while literally every activity/process/object/phenomenon is measured against it's ability to be transmuted into money, it's going to be hard to solve our actual problems