Construction Boom Quotes

We need a national ambition to build hundreds of thousands of new homes a year, both private and socially-rented - led by someone who will not take no for an answer and who will push for diggers in the ground and homes for all come what may.

There's almost 70 billion in square feet under construction in high rises in commercial, residential and light manufacturing. And we estimate about 30 billion square feet, and that's with a 'B,' is commercial, that we would just consider office space. To put that in perspective, that's a 5x5-foot cubicle for every man, woman and child in China.

Dubai was a property bubble. Plain and simple. Go to Dubai and see what happened. It was... what I call it the 'Edifice complex' - it's just, we can grow by putting up lots and lots of buildings and trying to attract people to come here, stay here, and put up offices here and sooner or later, you put up too many.

The rapid growth in many of our suburbs has spawned a booming construction industry eager to hire low wage immigrants who gladly fill these jobs, many of them happy to be paid in cash, free of federal and state taxes.

I certainly notice the vitality in Belfast, which wasn't there in the Seventies. There was a war going on then. Now there are cranes everywhere. There really is a sense of renewal and hope.

There are emerging countries. I mean, there are countries, you know, China, India, and Brazil, and all of these countries that are emerging. They are building homes. They are building - so there is a new lifestyle.

In the mid-1990s, when Russia was undergoing a construction boom, I entered the real estate development market.

London changes because of money. It's real estate. If they can build some offices or expensive apartments they will, it's money that changes everything in a city.

I'm proud to report that in 2004 alone, we approved 3,600 new units of housing - our best year ever!