Japanese housing policy has what seems like an inefficient system of knocking down any buildings older than some age when sold, with wood being 22 years, reinforced concrete being 47 years.

But it has three really great side effects

1. Because they always need to be building, they never run into this problem of losing institutional knowledge to keep building. 2. Buildings are periodically refreshed up to code for things like Earthquakes. 3. Because housing is never seen as an investment they don't get the NIMBY problem.