[ziddoap]

>Productivity in building construction has not improved much, according to data, even if tools have improved.

What data are you looking at? I worked in construction (to be fair, industrial and commercial sector) for over a decade. Productivity rates changed quite a bit during the decade I was an estimator. I will dig up my productivity books from when I first graduated and compare to the last one I purchased (a few years ago) when I get home.

>Even if tripling house size doesn’t literally triple costs, that is a straw man.

A straw man? Even if labor only accounted for 10% of the cost of building a house (it is much more), changes to labor productivity absolutely affect the cost to build. Productivity rates are different for a new build of 1000sqft and 2000sqft. Not sure how that's a straw man?

Also, just to clarify, I'm not really presenting an argument. I agree with the parent comment that these maps/analyses aren't able to capture all of the variables. They gave some variables to consider when looking at the article data. I'm giving some others.

>It certainly must account for some of the cost increase.

I said it's not a 1:1 relationship, not that size didn't account for costs at all.