Rather than slip back in to the Pre World War II depression economy our country went the other way after that war ended. The automobile industry successfully converted back to producing cars and new industries such as aviation and electronics began to grow by leaps and bounds while the number of workers providing services grew to equal and then surpass the number of workers providing goods. The middle class was growing. New inventions such as air conditioning were happening. New phenomenon such as shopping centers began to appear and the automobile took people further out from population centers to places developers were creating called SUBURBS. The postwar baby and housing boom began at the same time.
Builders began pumping out site built, framed (2x4 lumber), sheet rocked and shingled homes that were expected to last around 50 years.
Energy was cheap as was the fuel used to produce it. It was of no consequence (or so we thought) that the process of burning coal to convert water from liquid form to steam and use steam to generate electricity was only 34% efficient and pumped out pollutants in the form of CO2 and SO2 in to the our atmosphere in the process of generating coal fired electrical power. 
It also did not matter that the distribution of this power further and further out to the suburbs was dependent on extensive long distance ABOVE GROUND high voltage
power line infrastructure also subject to loss of energy in the form of "line loss" not to mention falling limbs and trees. There was no perceptible need to be efficient or cost effective with our use of fossil fuel and energy.
Now, some 60 years later things are beginning to really heat up both figuratively and literally while some are saying the balance of nature is teetering on the edge. The cost of the use of fossil fuel [energy production and transportation] in terms of actual dollars, the impact on the environment and the risk to our national security has long since ceased to be cheap. The average year around temperature is now hotter and the weather is more extreme regardless of your beliefs or philosophy on why that is. {U.S. sees hottest March in recorded history}{Past 12 months warmest ever recorded in U.S. History} {watch SUV go airborne on buckled U.S. highways due to extreme heat} {relief from severe July heat now on the horizon but severe weather follows in it's wake}.
When we use electricity from a coal-fired power plant we get a monthly bill from the local utility. It includes the cost of mining coal, transporting it to the power plant, burning it, generating the electricity, and delivering electricity to our homes. It does not, however, include any costs of the climate change caused by burning coal. That bill will come later and it will likely be delivered to our children.
Buildings in the U.S.A. accounted for 41% of primary energy consumption in 2010, 44% more than the transportation sector and 36% more than the industrial sector. Space heating, space cooling, and lighting were the dominant end uses in 2010. Of the 39 quadrillion Btu's consumed in the buildings sector, homes accounted for 54% and commercial buildings accounted for 46%. Of the energy sources used by the U.S. buildings sector, 75% came from fossil fuels, 16% from nuclear generation, and 9% from renewables. {source: U.S. Department of Energy}
Our sitting President along with his Cabinet in the Executive branch of our Federal Government has said that it will be an "All of the Above" policy toward energy independence for the United States. This makes sense in terms of conserving energy overall, reducing the use of fossil fuel and increasing the use of alternative and renewable. As we change the balance on energy consumption and increase the sustainability factor what people want and the way they want to do it is changing accordingly. This is happening now. Opportunity is being created in the process of achieving the goal(s).
Modern day energy audits performed by certified professionals reveal that the average conventionally built and 
normally maintained home will score a HERS rating of around 130 and allow for infiltration/exfiltration (leakage) of air the equivalent of about a 4 foot diameter hole in the wall (i.e. if all air leakage points were consolidated in to one hypothetical spot). Attic space can be as much as 140 degrees above the outside temperature in conventional site built homes creating extreme heat loads on the structure and the climate control system.
Builders have been, for the most part, erecting site built homes in much the same way they have been since the beginning of the housing boom after the second world war.......and guess what....there is now a confluence of factors that is changing the long term status quo in the building sector and the change is significant.
Building technology and technique now exists at acceptable levels of cost such that 
homes can be built to perform with HERS ratings at 50 and below.
Homes can perform both in terms of energy efficiency (cost of ownership) and indoor air quality (comfort) to an extent at least 80% greater than the average existing conventionally built home. EIGHTY PERCENT!! That's a significant equivalent decrease in cost of operation/ownership and a significant increase in comfort level. Here is to your good health, your wallet, and reduced energy consumption. Here is also to greater independence on foreign oil, greater domestic economic opportunity and global prominence in the energy sector led by U.S. innovation. And here's to a greater sense of satisfaction overall as the U.S. consumer demands (and receives) a better solution for where we live and sleep.
High performance homes will last longer (indefinitely) and command a much higher value.
We are on the verge of a paradigm shift and it represents significant and multiple win/win opportunities.
Stay tuned.....
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