Demolition Derby?

In my little town of Park City, there are lots of homes in good to excellent condition that are purchased to be torn-down and replaced by a brand-new, huge residence. When I picture the destruction in Gaza or in Ukraine, it makes me cringe and see the practice as wasteful and immoral. 

Recently, a young household purchased a home 200 yards from us in great condition (if was just restored and would have been worth $3 to 3.5 million today). The house was plenty big for them and their two young kids, but wasn’t meeting their wishes or not cool enough, so it just got teared down leaving a pile of rubble in its place. 

In ski towns like Park City, a small quarter of an acre lot is worth at least $2 million and it will take at least as much the same to rebuild it into a place with modern amenities (open floor plans, smart homes, exercise room etc.) that older homes lack. 

Now, for the bad news: Tearing down a functional home sends tons of debris to landfills (concrete, lumber, fixtures, etc). The US environmental agency estimates that annually, 600,000 tons of demolition waste come from residential tear-downs like that one. 

Not only that, but older homes already have "carbon savings" from decades of use, while new construction emits CO₂ from manufacturing materials (concrete, steel) and transportation, conflicting with sustainability goals. There’s also the fact that losing older homes often strip neighborhoods of their historic charm and character. 

Replacing modest homes with monster mansions, makes housing less affordable and displaces locals. There should be a push for deconstruction ordinances (like Portland’s in Oregon, that requires salvaging materials from old homes), encouraging renovating and expanding existing homes, building smaller, well thought-out living space as an affordable alternative to mega-mansions. 

While tear-downs are often legal and driven by market forces, they raise serious environmental, social, and moral questions and most of us living in ski towns share in the blame for that.