A European buddy visiting the states commented to me, some years ago, about how flimsy American construction was. "Back home we build things to last 500 years," and so on.

Part of that difference is that we don't want things to last that long. Expectations are that within 50 or 100 years this building will no longer be wanted in anything like its current form, so why build for longer? Just makes the teardown effort that much more expensive.

There's argument to be made for investing more in infrastructure like roads; but again there's a counter argument to be made in favor of the way things have evolved and are done now. Fresh roads are smooth and level and "fixing potholes" is never going to be cheaper or produce better results than occasional full refurbishments do.

Kind of a Laffer curve: Durable, low frequency but expensive maintenance vs flimsy, cheaply and often maintained and often rebuilt.