Our world was way different in October 1988: The Berlin Wall still stood, nobody checked your bags at the airport, and the World Wide Web didn’t exist. Also absent in those days was the notion that building material dealers that focused on professional contractors were a breed apart, distinct from the home centers that dominated LBM. But that notion came to life a few months later in a new magazine with a clear focus: ProSales.
You can read our back issues (you kept them all, right?) to see how dealers’ lives have changed in the 30 years since. For this special edition, however, we thought you’d get greater value by exploring how construction and construction supply will evolve over the next 30 years. We picked five areas of focus for the future. They point to exciting times ahead.
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5 for the Future: Demographics
Projections on how the demographics on the U.S. will change over the next 30 years and what retiring millennials will mean for the residential construction sector.
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5 for the Future: Construction
A look at what the future holds for 3-D printing, garages in residential homes, and timber in the non-residential construction market.
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5 for the Future: Environment
Future natural disasters will put a greater emphasis on resilience; building material suppliers could be contributing to community sickness; what rising water levels mean in the future.
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5 for the Future: Logistics/Products
The future of manufactured homes, trucking and rail transportation, clothing fabric materials, and microscopic building materials are explored.
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5 for the Future: Technology
Big data likely has a big role to play in LBM in the future and blockchain has the potential to revolutionize tracking and verification.
