*This comic was about France in 2021, but this style seems much more widespread.

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[–] 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Actually it’s more about building the houses as cheap as possible, because although French houses are generally much sturdier and better insulated than North American homes, building codes are not really well controlled here. They don’t even do plumbing and electrical inspections in new builds.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Are there zoning laws related to building footprints vs lot size, or maximum building square footage? In the US, many of these utilitarian box structures are designed to take advantage of the maximum allowable building size on a specific lot (This varies greatly by state and city)

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    That’s a good question, but I don’t know the answer, as my experience is strictly from working in the trades here. One thing to note is that the mayor’s office has a huge say in all that, and as someone mentioned above, there are often regulations on things like roof colour, so that houses in a given neighborhood all have matching roof tiles. I have friends that built a house nearby that the mayor hated because it wasn’t conformist enough for his tastes (they had incorporated lots of wood, resultant in a house with a more North American-style trim), but he’s totally fine with bland-ass white squares with red roofs, lol.

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