Population and Housing

[danbrotherston]

For sure the author is correct regarding HVAC and insulation benefits of newer homes. But I wonder how overall build quality is, in comparison.  A co-worker of mine had purchased a newer home (about 4 years old) and had issues with pipes freezing and other problems. My semi-detached is about 57 years old, and we never had any issues.

Though I highly doubt anyone with fetish our home...LOL

Have you lived in that house for 57 years? How do you know that the pipes didn't freeze in year 2?

I had a house that was 100 years old, and I took out two door frames, one that was original, one that was built about 10 years ago. The original one took hours of hacking at it with crowbars by three of us to take out. The one from 10 years ago, literally fell apart when I pulled on it to test its strength.

That being said, the new door frame that fell apart was never going to last 100 years. There is some survivorship bias.

But I don't think age is much of a heuristic about quality, in most cases. With the one clear exception that in North America it is the case that ONLY old places (but not all old places) have good urban design (well almost, I'm sure there are a handful of counter examples, which really just prove the rule).