La industria de materiales básicos de construcción ante las ingentes necesidades actuales de edificación

Abstract

This paper documents some of the aspects of the major challenge facing world-wide building: humanity's daunting shortage of basic housing, monographically focusing on what this means for the basic building materials industry. These needs have created the greatest demand ever for ex-novo solutions and an exponential increase in slum rehabilitation and improvement, translated here into the need for construction materials and more specifically, cement, as the emblematic component of buildings. Based on case studies, the article explores the differential impact of materials on final building costs in the developed world (DW) and developing countries (DC). It also studies the general consequences of "informal" construction, concluding that in many countries this sector consumes a major share of materials, particularly cement, and that globally speaking DCs are both the largest producers and consumers of that product.