Yeah the area where I grew up had no older houses. Florida swamp getting filled in with what would now be called McMansions and one 1000’ house designed/built by my dad — no air conditioning either. Definitely a conscious choice lol.
But thanks for the education on older homes and SUVs.
When I was a kid, we didn't have anything like the monster SUVs of today. That's because an SUV in those days was basically the same as the now-mostly-discontinued mini-pickup trucks with a built in cap and two doors. There was nothing with seven seats and four doors and 300 hp and so on. So people weren't making conscious decisions not to buy that.