Soundproofing on our two decade old house is excellent. I can't hear what is happening in other rooms (all interior walls are brick) and after we upgraded to double glazing (alas the Victorians didn't use that) there's virtually no noise from outside. The bricks have lasted hundred of years too. So they're actually quite green. They don't need to be replaced and won't for many more hundreds of years.
Brick isn't perfect, it doe need some help with insulation compared to modern multi-skin construction but its not as bad as you make out.
I'm hoping to move into a 15th Century stone built cottage at some point or a 17th Century stone-built inn. I love a lot of modern things, houses aren't one of them.
That does not make brick good that makes stud walls useless which they are.
Brick is not the only material to last hundreds of years.
It's certainly not green, it has a high U-value, which means hundreds of years of high heating compared to almost zero heating on other techniques.
It also adds to the allready expensive building technique.
Modern houses aren't in any way the cheapest method of construction. They're the cheapest that fits in with the uk image of brick rules.
America isn't all about funding for reserch allthough that obviously helps.
They have a different mindset. They are willing to fund high risk companies and see them fail, we aren't. This plays a large part of it as well. They also have far more publicly sponsored private tech compations and in the most part.(embryo and stem cell eexcemption) to introduce new laws quickly.
Like self driving car license in Nevada.
Compared to us, who haven't even auction of 4g bandwidth and drag are heels on any rules.
Although surprisingly it looks like we will be one of the first to license private drone abilities. But there's still time for us to **** that up.
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