Issue Contents

During the energy crunch that began in the spring of 2001, consumers saw their monthly utility bills increase by leaps and bounds within months.

The American Planning Association’s Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook could prompt states to review and change planning and land-use laws.

Swedish-bred Claes Fornell, director of the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan, exhibits little of the reserve often attributed to his countrymen.

Home building is a unique business. Consider the assets most other producers list on their balance sheets: physical facilities, manufacturing equipment, warehouses, etc. Now do the same exercise for most home builders.

A group of building company presidents explains how they retain their top performers.

Jim Previti, founder and chairman of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based Forecast Homes, sold the 30-year-old company to New Jersey-based Giant K. Hovnanian Enterprises in January.

Third-generation builder/developer John Knott is used to being told that what he wants to do can’t be done. It’s the mantra skeptics always attach to projects that challenge conventional development guidelines, and those are the only kind Knott...

Compared with people in the rest of the world, Americans are among the best housed. Still, a startling number of Americans do not have decent, affordable housing.

Relentless focus on buyer behavior has been a 20-year devotion for New York-based consultant and author Paco Underhill. Like a naturalist observing the wild, Underhill and a staff of correspondents follow shoppers through stores and capture their...

Wherever you go in America, strip malls are part of the landscape. That is the beauty of Randy Jackson’s proposed housing solution for land-strapped Orange County, Calif. If it works there, it probably will work in many other places.

So you just did everything right in hiring a new employee: identified hard and soft skills, evaluated potential, and orchestrated a carefully executed interview process — all resulting in an ideal employment decision.

Sailhouse is not a story about traditional neighborhood development and New Urbanism, even though this recently opened neighborhood in Corona del Mar, Calif., has been touted as such.

Despite conventional wisdom, Generation Xers are more like the rest of us than anyone suspected. As of last year, more Xers than baby boomers planned to buy homes, says American Demographics magazine.

At the height of the dot-com and e-commerce manias, leading thinkers predicted a day when knowledge workers would stay home for work. But now come data showing that from 1997 to 2001, the number of full-time telecommuters stayed roughly the same...

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed life and business as we know it. Today, CEOs across America are taking the time to learn a skill few ever thought they would need: how to handle a crisis.

We never spend enough time ensuring that the language we use to describe our individual companies communicates our message clearly.

After you have the right people in place, understand your market’s desires and deliver the highest-quality product, you’re left with only one missing element — killer ideas.

Each of the 2002 Professional Builder Achievement Award winners casts a wide net in the new residential construction industry.

Beaded cedar lap siding is designed to combine the look and feel of natural-cedar siding with the performance characteristics of fiber-cement.

Venetian Bronze is a nonglossy finish available on both the Delta Victorian and Delta Select Providence Classic and Williamsburg Classic lines.

With nine new colors for 2002, Corian solid surfaces now come in 100 colors.

Dens-Shield tile backer installs in half the time as conventional cement board in typical tile installations, the company says, citing an NAHB Research Center time-and-motion study.

The Marcato stainless steel sink, shown with the Fairfax pullout faucet, has double basins that are 8 inches deep.

The clear pine interior and solid brass handles of the outswing French door activate a concealed multipoint locking system

WoodClad windows are custom-built to your size and shape specifications, with various glazing options available. The windows have vertical-grain Douglas fir interiors and fiberglass exteriors.

The company offers a line of windows and doors certified to be hurricane-resistant by Dade County, Fla. A polymer interlayer not only meets strict code requirements, it also enables larger unit sizes (up to 50 square feet), higher design pressure...

The Electric Venting Skylight offers one-button, remote-control access to light and air for homeowners, and one-wire installation for builders.