Building Industry

The Blurred Boundaries of the Industry

There have always been builders, but the “building industry” was a project of the 1930s. Through a new agency, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the United States government worked to make this disparate sector into an object of economic [Page 101]management. It met with limited success, and the industry's boundaries remain blurred.

At different times and in varying degrees, house builders have overlapped with other types of construction companies, land subdividers, suppliers, subcontractors, and tradespeople. This was especially true in those cities (on the East Coast) where or at those times (1880s, 1920s, 1960s) when many multistory dwellings were built. In most North American urban areas, family homes, commonly detached, have been the predominant house type. The building technology for these homes is simpler than it is for other structures, and most house builders have confined themselves to this field. Those responsible for multifamily dwellings, however, have also built factories and offices, switching their focus according to business conditions.

Great fluidity has marked the connections between house builders, land subdividers, and building suppliers. In the 1800s, land subdividers, with exceptions such as Chicago's Samuel Gross, rarely erected houses. Vertical integration became more common in the 20th century. Large builders such as the Levitt brothers acquired land to support their building activities; landowners tightened control of development indirectly, by imposing building regulations, and directly by building. This blurring of lines between subdivider and builder was signaled by use of a new term—developer. Other companies bridged building and supply. In the United States, lumber has been the chief building material and lumber dealers the main source of supplies and shortterm credit. Local dealers have sometimes found it profitable to enter the building business themselves, especially during booms, retreating to their core business during recessions. In the late 1960s, for example, one third of lumber dealers also built homes; almost half undertook subcontracting; and two fifths manufactured roof trusses, an innovation of the early postwar era that replaced laborintensive rafterand-joist roofing systems.

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