zlacker

IMO yes; if the materials cost a lot of time/carbon/resources to produce, then we should make them last!

>>sesuxi+(OP)
I agree. Its like one of the few things we can give future generations. 'sorry about the debt, but heres some buildings'

>>sesuxi+(OP)
No, time is not an externality: maybe time under construction yields to disruption to neighbours under construction and we can charge for that. Resources are fully internalized. If a building needs x sand and another needs 2x sand, the second will pay twice for sand. Carbon is externalized, but that's a general problem. How do we know that making a lasting building is better/worse than having the building not exist / exist and having people driver farther / closer?

Simple, for externalities, you directly charge for the externality.

All these stop-gap "it costs carbon, so we must make it last 50 years" is like placing massive `if-then-else` statements throughout your codebase and then being surprised when the emergent behaviour of your program somehow results in uglier, more carbon polluting, sicker buildings that are now 100 years old and imposing massive costs on society around them.

>>autoka+G
You're implicitly assuming they'll want those buildings, and I'm not sure they will. Perhaps those buildings will be unsuitable for their activities, or the buildings will be found unsafe for some unforeseen reason. If either of these possibilities occur, the additional time, energy, and pollution you incurred to make the buildings rust-resistant are waste.

>>sesuxi+(OP)
Japan builds buildings to last 30 years on average. They tear them down and build new ones. Is it good, bad, something else? I don’t know, except not everyone builds for things to last a long time.

>>mc32+sd
People quote this figure often, but it really only applies to detached single-family dwellings, which are commonly built for a single owner. Japan certainly doesn't build larger structures such as office buildings for thirty-year lifespans – no one has floated any plans to tear down the Kasumigaseki Building yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasumigaseki_Building

>>morten+9f
Have things changed in the last decade or so[1]?

Japanese loathe “second hand” stuff if they can avoid it. This includes property. The service life for buildings is 47 to 50 years or so, for depreciation purposes.

Totally unrelated, but I love that 1000 year old wooden temples get rebuilt every 20 years or so[2] because of the religious idea of renewal.

[1] https://japanpropertycentral.com/2012/06/what-is-the-lifespa...

[2]https://chrispythoughts.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/558/

>>mc32+Gg
> The service life for buildings is 47 to 50 years or so, for depreciation purposes.

That doesn't tell you much: in the US the lifetime of a residential rental building is 27.5 years for depreciation purposes, and 39 for non-residential: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p946

>>morten+9f
One historic building being 50 years old proves very little - of course some buildings last longer than the average. E.g. every one of the famous Dojunkai apartment buildings has been demolished.

>>mc32+Gg
Possibly.

"A recent innovation in the Japanese real estate industry to promote home ownership is the creation of a 100-year mortgage term. The home, encumbered by the mortgage, becomes an ancestral property and is passed on from grandparent to grandchild in a multigenerational fashion. We analyze the implications of this innovative practice, contrast it with the conventional 30-year mortgage popular in Western nations and explore its unique benefits and limitations within the Japanese economic and cultural framework." The 100-year Japanese residential mortgage: An examination (1995) (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/106195....)

>>mcguir+Mw
My understanding is the cost is mostly the land and the building not so much. I think Sweden introduced a law limiting mortgages to ~100 years[1] because property prices were becoming unaffordable to many. So this may be more about "affordability" than longevity of buildings, but time will tell.

[1]https://www.thelocal.se/20160324/sweden-limits-mortgage-loan...