GREAT DECLINE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20024, 4 September 1930, Page 4

GREAT DECLINE.

BUILDING IN U.S.A. FIFTY PER CENT. DECREASE. Prospective building throughout the United States during the first half of 1930, as revealed in official reports of building permits issued in 578 principal cities and towns, fell perceptibly behind the volume .for the first six months of 1929, according to S. W. Straus and Co. For the first half of 1930 the volume of permits was 1,039,037,914 dollars, • a decrease of 49 per cent, from the same period last'year, when the figure was 2,036,334,562 ■ dollars. June this year showed a loss of 33 per cent, from June 1929. Permits for the month totalled 180,066,975 dollars against 202,231,771 dollars in May—a loss of 11 per cent. The Straus index of building permits for the month of June was 60.7, compared frith an index of 59.6 for May. Although this would seem to indicate a slight increase over the preceding month, the increase is not as great as I^.1 1 called for by the seasonal factors isted for trend. Taking account of these factors, the index reveals that building permits for June were 21.8 per cent, below normal. Although this record is not as good as that for the preceding month, S. W. Straus and Co. point out that building permits in June «vero nearer to" normal than in any other month except May during the current year. Regarding the general building situation, the company stated: Sounder Conditions Developing. "These data again make clear the fact that throughout the country generally sounder conditions for improved real estate are steadily developing. Surpluses of building space which may exist in one type of housing or another in localities here and there are being steadily absorbed through the present let-up in building activities. "With this gradual trend towards well balanced conditions of supply and demand, the rental situation is, of course, improving in corresponding degree by reason of the removal of surplus space from tho market. A better tone is thus being imparted to the entire real estate situation, particularly in the larger cities of tho nation. Readjustment Began in 1925. "This does not mean necessarily that the present period of readjustment need be greatly prolonged. Following four years of very active building, the present cycle, in fact, began toward the end of 1925, since which time tho trend of general building activities has been steadily downward. "As a further indication of tho increasing stability of improved real estate conditions, it is to be noted that the Federal census reports now being announced reveal substantial population growths in the principal cities of the country. Increased population means increased demand for housing space of all kinds. "For illustration, take the census report covoring Hew York City. This shows that during the ten-year poriod there was a growth of more tlian 1,342,000 in population. To assist one in trying, to visualise this -enormous gain; it might be stated-that New York City,in order to fulfill its normal housing requirements during tho last, ten-year period, thus has had to construct another metropolis within its boundaries as large as the City of Detroit. Chicago within her boundaries has had to build another city larger than Washington or Milwaukee. And in all the other cities of the country population growths have necessitated groat construction projects, such as office buildings, hotels, apartment hotels, and- apartment houses."

June contracts let for now building and engineering works in the thirtyseven States cast of the Rocky Mountains amounted to 600,573,400 dollars, according to F. W. Dodge Corporation. The month's record was substantially larger than the total, 457,416,000 dollars, for the previous month, showed a good gain over the lotal of 529,891,100 dollars for June, 1929, and was the

largest monthly total since July, 1929. For the first half of 1930 construction contracts aggregate 2,638,013,300 dollars. This was a decline of only 12$ per cent, from the total of 3.015,546,800 dollars for the corresponding period of ,1929. At tlie end of May contracts for the year to data were 18 pot cent, behind last year.

brick and very little higher than timber. The art of concrete construction, he said, was in the scientific designing of the boxing. On small sections and in the frontages of commercial buildings its use was more valuable, because it effected a saving of space,. It had the property of withstanding compression, tension, and torsion, and lent itself to exterior colouring in no fewer than 48 different shades.

Within a few years a definite movement will be launched toward building a subterranean city under New York, according to Francis Keally, architect, who makes the prediction tnat within ten years basement levels in New York will be relatively as important as street levels. He visions practically all traffic—vehicular and transit—buried in boulevards far below the street level of the city within fifty years. The basement levels, in Mr Kcally's opinion, disclose a totally new problem for the architect. Hitherto the subterranean level in New York has been regarded solely as an engineer's field. But the architect and engineer should co-operate in maintaining the underground levels not only as the most advanced type of engineering construction, but as artistic developments underground which will vie in beauty and originality with the skyscraper above it. There is no reason, Mr Keally observed, why New York's subways should not be as beautiful as the caves of Virginia, with their stalactites glittering with silver hues as the light falls upon them, nor why they should not possess the brilliant colours of the objects found in Tutankhamen's tomb, for example.

"Dartmoor," appearing on the "address-in-full" line of his insurance card, was blamed by an ex-convict nt Middlesex sessions for his failure to get work. Flies avoid rooms lit by yellow glass windows, according to observations in a British factorv. These insects are also said to dislike rooms with blue printed walls. LAITZO. SAMSON WAS STRONG. To wteck the temple pillars as Samson did was a feat of strength . . . but it was destructive. "Laitzo," tie cold-water glue, is constructive in its strength It is the strongest cement known foi sticking wood, leather, robber, fabric, tiles, glass, and should be in every house. 2s 6d per lb. Small tins Is • from Ironmongers, Storekeepers, and . Briscoe and Co., Ltd., Cache] streei, ~