Was recently in a fairly new construction house in a very cold climate state that did not have a full basement below the frost line. There was a partial 8’x8’ corner that sunk down to where the water line came in, but the rest of the footprint was a crawl space. Losing the basement does affect the style of building that is economical to build on top though, mainly due to building codes.

A basement is nice to have if you live in an area with tornados.

I live in an area with freezing weather. The water pipe to my house is just a PVC pipe buried below the frost line, i.e. in a trench about 3 or 4 feet deep. There's no concrete involved.