David Brancaccio

But the lesson didn't disappear.

Today, we're back in a housing crisis, short on homes and short on labor.

That pressure is pushing builders toward a new wave of industrialized housing.

I want to go back just briefly to what used to stand on our property, that picture of my house, because when I look at it now, I don't see some sort of failure.

I see a house that did exactly what it was designed to do for the last hundred years.

Yeah, or whether we take advantage of what has changed, new knowledge that's been taken aboard, new materials that have come our way.

So just a couple blocks away, my new friend Heidi is building with something called ICF, insulated concrete forms.

It looks like styrofoam from a cup, but flattened into Lego bricks that click together.

You pour concrete in between, Jen, and you end up with an insulated concrete house.

And what do we know about concrete?

Whatever happens, it's not going to burn down.

Edith Bunker.

So Heidi, tell me your whole name.

Too bad we can't just paint a backdrop of our houses and call it a day, but that doesn't quite work.

We can't live in those.

I got to say more than something.

You're using an unusual construction technique.

Give me a sense of it.

No, I love what Heidi's doing, but it's a lot of concrete for my own tastes.

Concrete requires a lot of carbon dioxide to be spilled to make the stuff.