Why developers seem to only build luxury housing (2018)

It's ironic that I know someone who lives in a building where sprinklers have been retro-fit in the most incompetant and chaotic manner you could imagine.

The problems within the UK construction industry go far, far beyond the implementation of obvious saftey measures.

The Grenfell disater would never have happened if works had been carried out in accordance with regulations at the time, sprinklers or no sprinklers.

Nicer architecture: Only sometimes. Sometimes, old is just old and plain. Not to mention that things change over the years: I'm guessing by 'old house' you refer to something built pre-1940 and not the ranch style house built in the 60's: Those houses from the 60's are over 50 years old, though.

Better materials? I'm not convinced. Drafty doors and windows, little insulation, lead paint, outdated plumbing parts, and old wires are a few things that were used. Any serious look at windows used during building booms during the 50's dispels the materials, honestly - at least in the US.

More space? Again, only if you get the right house. Plenty of old houses are small. You also have a bit of survivor bias here: Old, large houses that were expensive were more likely to be maintained and preserved later. I'll also point out that a good deal of old houses are now apartments, and also point out that the space you get in an old house costs more to heat. On top of that, this was a space designed for a different time period. That means that space can be a much less efficient space than you get in a new house that is wired for modern times.

Maybe using more mature trees really isn't something we should be doing right now? At least some of those mature trees contributed to deforestation and it seems better to get trees not from old growth, but from new growth from a well-managed forest area, where swaths of trees are replanted.

Old houses are just full of downfalls, even if you happen to be getting more space and possibly a better looking house.

How does that work if I want something cheaper than a single family home such as a condo? I can't build a stand alone condo (I mean a stand alone 600 square foot house on a 0.05 acre lot would be awesome for me but zoning regulations prohibit that in practically all areas of the US). I'd need to organize dozens of people that also want a condo. That's not really feasible for me.

I'd also say zoning generally prohibits this in most desirable areas. Developers have the ability to do a lot of legal work to get approvals and permits. Since they are getting approval for a large number of buildings or units, they can distribute that cost and so they can sometimes build in those desirable areas where it would be too costly for me to build as an individual.

The real issue here is scarcity of square footage. The US has more than enough land to house everyone.

According to Wikipedia:

* ~4 million mi^2 of land * ~130 million housholds

This is about 19 acres per family. Of course this is an overestimate because a lot of land is waterways, mountains, etc. Even if we assume that we're off by 100x that's .2 acres/family which equates to a house something like this: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/40-Canvasback-Ln-Elizabet...

Maybe instead of trying to put as many people as possible into as small of a square foot area we could:

1. Build public transit that can cover larger distances. (Street cars, busses, subways)

2. Artificially stimulate new communities (0 property & sales tax for any restaurants, bars, theaters, etc for 30 years)

3. Build out high quality infrastructure. This could be built underground with maintenance tunnels that allow these utilities to be repaired and could be subsidized by the construction of subways. (sewers, power, fiber)

Air conditioning is going to hugely increase in popularity here in the UK. I think people like the tech, including better heating and sound and heat insulation and FTTP, but it's balanced out by the poor reputation of new builds in terms of quality issues.