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I don't think this is "depressing". I see a post-WWII boom that was followed by a long downward trend that was temporarily broken by the housing bubble and is now continuing. In other words, for the last 50 years we have been figuring out how to build things with fewer people, freeing them up to do other things, and I see no reason why that will not continue or why we should wish that it should not.

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Exactly; even though the article mentions the meaning of the graph, it seems to misinterpret it anyway.

From my perspective as a residential carpenter I see a continuing decline in the cost of labor combined with increases in efficiency due to new materials and equipment. Combine that with the high price of land in most urban areas, and I don't see much incentive for the big home builders to push manufactured homes and on-site automated fabrication.

Also, the reference to 1946 is a bit sensationalistic, considering that the current percentage is actually very close to where it was after the previous decline in the 1990s. The boom-bust cycle of housing construction seems to be a pattern that repeats itself on a regular basis, and the current cycle is shaped pretty much like the others.

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