The Cathedrals stand because they have been maintained by each generation -- and each generation has added something: a chapel, a statue, a ceiling boss. To this day you will often find them surrounded by scaffolding. It detracts from the view but it's as much a part of the process as the stone.
Angkor Wat is no older, yet it has crumbled. Its maintenance ceased for generations. The difference is stark.
(Angkor is now seeing something of a revival. Restoration work has occurred over the last two or three generations, and more will happen now as the Khmer people become wealthier again.)
These buildings are a reminder that there are long-term dynamics of birth and death and reproduction that outlive the individual.
Why do you have to make this about something being wrong with a group of people?
But for honesty's sake, I will note here that, originally, I ended the parent post:
> Maybe the absence of these reminders is one of the things that's wrong with North Americans.
I do think there's a problem to do with being historically adrift, but I won't belabor it here.
If they don't have the dynamism, economy, or youth of other countries, they fixate on what they do have — buildings which are faded memories of the cultures which built them.
In some places - Detroit is an example - people start leaving, the tax base dwindles, and by the time they realize the need to demolish things, the funds aren't there. In some cases, the city pulls in its borders and declares the former-city areas someone else's problem.
Here's a Detroit residential neighborhood suffering it now: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/eerie-images-of-detroits-m...
I don't think that's a totally unfair statement depending on the region though. At least in Seattle a fair amount of homes are Craftsman homes which haven't aged well since they were ordered directly from a Sears catalog without considering the very wet local climate of the Northwest. (And yes, that Sears and that Craftsman.)
I'm aware of Sears catalog homes but not of any link between the Sears owned Craftsman tool brand and the craftsman style of home, which is connected to the Arts and Crafts design movement. Can you provide a reference?
I do wonder if the tool name (apparently a brand purchased from a small Chicago toolmaker by Sears in 1927) was inspired in part by the architectural movement, which was the product of a specific designer (Gustav Stickley) in the early 1900s.
I couldn't find any references to such a connection though.