You must have some weird definition of "developer" then, something that's not compatible with what I'm talking about.

Who built all the brownstones in New York, for example? Today, they'd be called developers. What is your definition?

Again, american cities are a small fraction of the world.

So other than naturally formed caves, everything else is built by, you guessed it, developers. It's just an umberalla term - you might call it builders in some other parts of the world.

It could be a problem of a definition. In my country, a "developer" is someone who constructs buildings not for himself but to sell them to others. If I build a house for myself, then I am not a "developer". The difference is that "developers" only care about profit. For example, I wouldn't want to antagonize future neighbors, but the "developer" doesn't care about that.

Ok, but still by that definition every apartment building is built by a developer. So all the beautiful buildings in Paris or Rome or wherever. So they are hardly a modern American phenomenon.

You know who else only cares about profit? Farmers. Bakers. Grocers. Etc.

People needs homes. If somebody is "antagonized" because somebody else now has a home, the problem lies solely, fully, and 100% with the person that feels "antagonized." Its not an appropriate or socially acceptable response.