Quote Originally Posted by jessmarimba View Post
I just have an issue with beautiful old houses that are demolished to make room for mcmansions. A lot of people are raised to think that "new" means "maintenance-free" - and while maintenance on an old home can get tricky and downright expensive, the home I grew up in was fairly new when we bought it and had just as many issues b/c of poor construction and material quality. Not to mention all of the useless construction waste that fills up landfills on a regular basis because of the demolition of perfectly useful buildings. We certainly live in a disposable society.
My brother lives in an area about an hour NW of Chicago where miles and miles and miles of farmland now grow miles and miles and miles of look-alike mc mansions that were erected in a breathtakingly short span of time. His house was done in about 3 months from start to finish...and has had problem after problem. Now about a quarter of the houses in his 'hood are for sale...many in foreclosure (here is a BIG problem I have with a lot of these places, since they exist as a result of folks who felt the need to buy/build the biggest home they could, whether or not they could afford it. We can't just blame the banks for the bailout disaster, which we are ALL still paying for. It took two to tango with that mess). His is for sale because he wanted to live closer to the city with his girlfriend. He's SO not a suburbanite kind of guy. But he can't sell his home. So now he pays rent and a mortgage.