- The easiest land is developed first, with further expansion and in-fill occurring for land that in the past was deemed too hard or too expensive to develop on.
- Homes are larger and more complex as everyone's expectations have increased. A bedroom shared by two kids in two small beds is now two large bedrooms with queen sized beds. Second and third living areas are commonplace and much larger.
- Modern homes are typically designed to only last only ~20 years before being knocked down and rebuilt. The theory being that people in 20 years time will demand different floor plans, different house features, etc and the cost of renovating an existing structure far exceeds the cost of rebuilding at the 20 year mark.
- Homes are better engineered (for example, better insulated and with more waterproofing) but this requires more materials and labour, and is more complex, meaning more mistakes made during construction that require expensive repairs and rework.
- Old growth forest has been depleted and we've now got a materials price that better matches longer term sustainable forestry pricing (however, it's still too low).
- Public infrastructure such as roads are built to a much higher quality than the past. Open drains are replaced with buried stormwater piping. People expect MRI machines in climate controlled hospitals and larger climate controlled schools with more extra-curricular space/features.
- The easiest land is developed first, with further expansion and in-fill occurring for land that in the past was deemed too hard or too expensive to develop on.
- Homes are larger and more complex as everyone's expectations have increased. A bedroom shared by two kids in two small beds is now two large bedrooms with queen sized beds. Second and third living areas are commonplace and much larger.
- Modern homes are typically designed to only last only ~20 years before being knocked down and rebuilt. The theory being that people in 20 years time will demand different floor plans, different house features, etc and the cost of renovating an existing structure far exceeds the cost of rebuilding at the 20 year mark.
- Homes are better engineered (for example, better insulated and with more waterproofing) but this requires more materials and labour, and is more complex, meaning more mistakes made during construction that require expensive repairs and rework.
- Old growth forest has been depleted and we've now got a materials price that better matches longer term sustainable forestry pricing (however, it's still too low).
- Public infrastructure such as roads are built to a much higher quality than the past. Open drains are replaced with buried stormwater piping. People expect MRI machines in climate controlled hospitals and larger climate controlled schools with more extra-curricular space/features.