It is prevalent for the study of housing to be organized into subject matter courses dealing separately with specific aspects of housing hardware (eg. building techniques) or housing software (eg. various public and private housing programs). As a consequence of this separation, the vital role of the home building industry is either ignored or given only superficial consideration. It is suggested, however, that this neglect is not always accidental, since competence and confidence in presenting a well-integrated course focusing on the total housing delivery system are not normally found among teaching faculties.

It is now accepted that the “ real-world” of producing and delivering housing is still handicapped by many professionals (architects, engineers, planners alike) who, because of their educational background, still cannot distinguish suboptimization from a global viewpoint. That this has hindered severely the development of viable delivery systems for housing in this country is painfully apparent today.