> Architectural ornament is much cheaper than it used to be, so it is less important.
This doesn't sound like opposite to cost disease. On one hand, the "flat" cost of labour to raise a building goes up because of Baumol, and so does the "flat" cost of land. On the other, additional unnecessary _ornaments_ that would display wealth go down in price because of industrialization and improved technology. So the (effective signal / (cost of signals + flat costs)) ratio goes down, and traditional architecture is not very efficient at signalling.
So you either:
A) pay astronomical contracts to a scarce set of elite-approved architects, so that they build crazy structures that make engineers cry. Because that will _actually_ rise the costs of construction unnecessarily by an order of magnitude or two.
B) make concrete, cubic, efficient and borderline functional buildings for the general populace to be in.
>But Kaleberg argues the exact opposite point:
> Architectural ornament is much cheaper than it used to be, so it is less important.
This doesn't sound like opposite to cost disease. On one hand, the "flat" cost of labour to raise a building goes up because of Baumol, and so does the "flat" cost of land. On the other, additional unnecessary _ornaments_ that would display wealth go down in price because of industrialization and improved technology. So the (effective signal / (cost of signals + flat costs)) ratio goes down, and traditional architecture is not very efficient at signalling.
So you either:
A) pay astronomical contracts to a scarce set of elite-approved architects, so that they build crazy structures that make engineers cry. Because that will _actually_ rise the costs of construction unnecessarily by an order of magnitude or two.
B) make concrete, cubic, efficient and borderline functional buildings for the general populace to be in.