You said “exactly the same thing”. Middle-class and merely affluent people in the U.S. aren’t adding an entire basement or subbasement (or, if lot size isn’t an issue, new wing) with the same square footage as one storey of the existing home for the purpose of putting in a home theatre or indoor pool. Home theatre and rec room and gym “extensions” for those people generally amount to renovating an existing space or room (e.g. finishing a basement or converting a den), and swimming pools for the comfortable and affluent in the U.S. are outdoor additions. An additional wine store is usually the space of a closet. Add-on steam rooms and discos, above or below ground, are about as common in the U.S. (and I’d wage in Europe) as staff rooms or underground salons.
When they go to trouble to add an extension, non-plutocrat Americans usually aren’t doubling the total amount of square footage and are usually adding a leasehold improvement that truly increases the re-sale value or income potential (e.g. a bigger kitchen, en-suite bathroom for the master bedroom, mother-in-law suite).
As a side note, the middle-class and affluent Americans you’re talking about actually live in these homes and enjoy these new amenities themselves for 6+ months of the year. The oligarchs in London doing this are often absent from the property for all but a few weeks a year.
I’m sure there are instances of these London-style basements being dug and fitted out somewhere in the U.S., but it’s usually being done by ultra wealthy individuals and the activity is not concentrated or common to the extent that it is in London (not even in Manhattan or the city of San Francisco).
That’s not what’s being discussed in this article, but if a zone in the U.S. doesn’t allow for teardowns or extensions that abut the property lines the usual solution is to find a neighbourhood where it is allowed or where there are larger lots. If living in a particular neighbourhood is important enough then non-UHNWIs (and many UHNWIs) abide by the zoning restrictions instead of bypassing them, presumably because they recognise the benefits of those restrictions. What they’re not doing is digging multiple basements as a workaround.
These London basements are gross displays of conspicuous consumption, not reactions to onerous zoning regulations or amenities that substantially improve the quality of their absentee owners’ lives or the re-sale value of the home (because the next oligarch who buys it will likely tear out the fittings to make it his own).
In short, to say that what these plutocrats are doing in London is exactly what middle-class and wealthy Americans do on a regular basis in the suburbs is to normalise what has been (at least since 1945 in the West) the abnormal.
