re: Why don’t people build houses with wrap around porches anymore?

We have a covered front porch that I enjoy from time to time but I get a fair amount of road noise.

My goal is to have a nice, big garden out in the backyard (especially since we don’t have young kids or a dog). Going to take some time to cultivate that for sure though.

When we bought this place, the front facing the road had a porch the entire length. It was known locally as the one place that would have a cooling breeze when no one else had. It faces east. It had one swing. We took that one down (it's now on the porch on the west facing front of my husband/s wood working shop) and we built two swings from Louisiana cypress, one for either end,

The miracle (snark) of porches is that they give shade. Shade drops air temperatures and cool the houses faster than that maple tree you just planted in the front yard that you'll start appreciating in fifteen to thirty years.

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front loading garages and carports.

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Never been my favorite. I'm currently in a rental, and the entire neighborhood is like this. Many people can't park their cars inside them for all the crap they have stored in the "garage" area. It looks like a disaster area, and a lot of people park their vehicles in the street.

The HOA -- and I know many are against HOAs -- is either non-existant here -- or have no authority.

I’ve always said that if I were to win the powerball I’d buy tons of land and build a large farm style house with a wrap around porch.

Maybe in my next life….

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That's because the kitchen has transformed into the main entertainment/ hangout spot of the modern house.

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But only because of air conditioning. Kitchens were separate to keep heat out of the living areas of a home.

I have one. It's a pain in the arse keeping it clean from bugs and chairs are always getting dirty. I hardly use it outside of some pleasant weather in the fall and winter.

ain't nobody sitting on porches anymore

Air conditioning. Ain’t no one wanting to sit outside for long drinking tea and sweating their arse off in a rocking chair anymore.

I have a large back deck that basically get used three months out of the year. Otherwise it’s useless.

Lot of cost for roof structure that is seldom used in the halcyon HVAC age. Also eats up a lot of land which is about as expensive as building in all but rural areas. 10' side setbacks are IBC standards in most zoning ordinances so a 100 foot wide lot loses 20 feet with the stroke of a pen leaving 80 to fit in the house, with 8 foot porches that leaves 64 feet without any place to park vehicles, inside or out. I like the look, with advent of air conditioning it became impractical, especially in urban and suburban areas....

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To construct them, you’ve got to build the same foundations, floor, structural load bearing system and roofing of interior spaces

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This is only true, in most jurisdictions which have adapted the IBC, IF the porch is fully enclosed (not screened) and heated. If any space is fully enclosed (not screened) and heated (not cooled) the minimum live load is 20 LB per square foot PLUS the dead load. For outdoor spaces that are covered but not fully enclosed the live load is reduced to 15 pounds per square foot and may or may not require any dead load depending on the design and planned use. This means the roof of a porch, if a solid plane from ridge to supporting structure at the outside of the porch, can de designed for much lighter loads than the same roof which rests on the supporting structure of an interior space. The difference is pretty drastic, especially in footings and beam spans. If the porch roof is also supported by the supporting structure of the interior space at the interior space AND at the outside of the porch those spans and footing / foundation designs are far less expensive for the porch itself than the interior space. There are an awful lot of shed and even gable and hip roof covered porches built to code on pressure treated posts directly buried, something that requires an engineering stamp to do with the same interior space. General contractors and even home owners in jurisdictions allowing such designs can do so with porches, almost no jurisdiction allows the same entitites to do so with interior spaces.

The cost of covered porces is not comparable to living space, it is not insignificant but the actual cost is one of utility....they are seldom used spaces that, while costing substantially less than living spaces, still cost a significant amount of money to build.