Why don't we use awnings anymore (2022)

It surprises me to read about "fixed metal frame" awnings. You don't _have_ to make that trade off.

In the Netherlands a lot of houses have electrically retractable awnings (or even just mechanically windable by hand), especially above the giant windows facing the back yard.

During winter and bad weather, we retract the awning. When it's too sunny, we deploy it.

typical row house layout with big windows on both sides: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorzonwoning

retractable awning: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonnescherm

We have them in america too. But every moving part comes with inflated costs for both acquisition and ongoing maintenance.

In the Netherlands it costs around a grand, as for maintenance... Haven't needed to do any in more than 15 years. The actual screen retracts into a weather proof metal casing, so there's not that much that goes wrong, whereas fixed awnings are exposed to the full weather gamut 24/7.

Let me put it this way: it's cheap enough that a lot of social housing and other cheap forms of housing inhabited by the "lower class" feature them.

A government paying for a thing does not in any way imply that the thing is a good use of money. How many decades of fabric replacements could you get from the savings of bolting on a simple metal frame as compared to an elaborate electromechanically actuated arm mechanism?

In the Netherlands? If its bolted on, it won't even last a year. The North Sea has a lot of storms ;)

Northwestern Europe usually gets a storm at hurricane level 2 every one or two years and several at level 1 per season. There's a reason the name for these storms – Orkan – is derived from hurricane.

For comparison, that's similar or slightly higher in strength than hurricane Sandy when it hit the northeast of the US.

That's why if you have fixed awnings in this region of europe, they're usually removed as soon as fall hits (which compromises on the fixed part) or made of metal (which compromises on the "awning" part IMO).