STATE OF BUSINESS: Faint Praise

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Businessmen talking through their hats often make extravagant predictions for a new year. No hat prophecy, but a bareheaded appraisal of 1940's building prospects appears in the January ARCHITECTURAL FORUM. There are gathered the considered opinions of economists, several big statistical organizations, 130 bankers, contractors, city and FHA officials, realtors, architects, engineers, from 21 cities. Their composite conclusion: 1940 is likely to be the U. S. building industry's best year in a decade (damnation by faint praise), a $6,558,000,000 year, up only 4% from 1939 (1920-29 average: $8,972,000,000).

Items of the guesstimate:

> Industrial construction will jump 27% from $200,000,000 to $254,000,000.

> Public-utility construction will rise 16%, total $638,000,000.

> Farm building will increase 9% to $360,000,000.

> Because vacancies in non-farm residences are at an absolute rock-bottom 1%, at least 500,000 dwellings will be built in 1940, residential construction will up 11% from $1,900,000,000 to $2,109,000,000. In addition there will be $500,000,000 building of homes under the USHA program.

> Though occupancy is the best in a decade, office building vacancy is still 18%; therefore the only likely item of commercial construction will be retail stores in new residential areas.

> Government-financed construction of highways, conservation projects, public buildings, sewers, water systems, etc. will drop 6% to $2,632,000,000.