[dkarl]

That may be true in some areas of Austin, but in most cases, it's about cost and expectations. Austin straddles the border between dry, rocky west Texas and wetter, black soil east Texas, but houses have traditionally been built without basements no matter what kind of soil they were built on, in Austin and in other parts of Texas. These days, a lot of newer, more expensive houses are built with basements to maximize usable square footage.

[Fatnino]

Houses used to be small, built of wood, and hardly attached to the ground at all. It was fairly common practice to pick up a house and move it to another plot nearby.

I think once cities get older and more ossified in their shape is when basements start to appear.

Assuming there is no other reason to avoid it like flooding, hard rock, earthquakes, etc.

[bin_bash]

> It was fairly common practice to pick up a house and move it to another plot nearby.

To me that sounded fishy but I looked it up and you seem to be right! https://www.brownstonedetectives.com/the-ancient-art-of-movi...