Shed Homes

In the above two answers are right with basements have been where the coal was shipped and stored. The giant oven used coal was there too. Once the coal is gone, people were accustomed to the basement as additional living or storage space, the location of laundry, etc.

Having a basement is ideal for plumbing ....... water line enters the wall at whatever depth is necessary to prevent freezing ....... and then can be played around and run up the walls. Same thing with the furnace and air conditioning vents.

It is cheaper to build a small "footprint" than building a house requires the diffusion of much larger foundation.

Basements are not to wet soils, water seeps through the walls. Even then, there are ways to capture water that seeps inside and head through waste lines.

We have tornado. And the basement provides more square images to the house without taking over lot.And usually are finished so it is habitable in space.

when I saw that you have to do a foot below the frost line ... so why not get another few feet and use the space ...

Western U.S. households do not have basements, mostly, and many new houses elsewhere. I think it's a question of space and are used for storage or garage. Esp in the cities.
In California, where I live, we have 2-3 car garages for our vehicles, toys and gardening machinery

I think it probably evolved from the old root cellars. It is mostly underground storage areas and were used to keep food fresh. Now we have evolved in refrigeration, but we still need storage areas;) God knows, there is no food in my basement, but much of the rest.

kinda prevents home against floods as well. the water will go into the basement instead of house.

The main reason is simply the least expensive to build up or down, then he is building on the left or right.

especially because our classes are smaller and because we have tornadoes and just because it's cool to have a dungeon

is, it is a bit silly. I think the basement started as a cellar "and eventually turned into living space potential. Thats the selling point is that you can finish and a recreation area. A lot of people do , however, and use it for storage, laundry, and generally the furnace and water tank are hidden there. as in cold climates, warmer sound storage for things you do not want to freeze .

where I live now the water level is too high in the spring and if anyone foolish enough to build a basement it would flood every year, so nobody does. but 5 minutes later up the road on the lake, everyone has basements.

stupidity, they have all hangar too.

and then they have to go buy more stuff to fill two.