Thomas Edison Solved Housing But The Works Was Not Ready Thomas Edison’s 1907 plan for affordable housing aimed to cast complete concrete homes—including bathtubs—in a single six-hour pour, but the outcome became a major logistical challenge. In the early 1900s, the United States faced a working-class housing crisis. Urban tenements in places like New York were crowded, prone to fire, and unsanitary. Having launched the Edison Portland Cement Company, Edison proposed a reusable cast-iron mold that could let contractors mass-produce identical, inexpensive homes. These buildings would resist fire and insects and could be cleaned easily with a hose. Edison even promised to forgo patent profits to address the tenement problem. His engineering vision overlooked economic and practical limits. The mold for one design used more than 2,300 interlocking nickel-plated iron pieces. A contractor needed to buy at least $175,000 in equipment, a huge investment in 1907. Moving, setting up, and taking apart the apparatus demanded a large crew and heavy machinery, which reduced the expected savings from cheap concrete. The pouring process was technically strict. The concrete had to flow well enough to move from the roof through complex molds and fill every space without gaps. If the mix varied slightly, the whole structure failed. Edison also misread human attitudes. The homes were labeled as slum housing before construction began. People disliked the idea of living in a uniform concrete box like the neighbor’s, a sharp change from the era’s personal styles. Only a few dozen were built—mainly in Union, New Jersey, and Gary, Indiana—leaving Edison with a multimillion-dollar loss on an idea the public rejected.

Southern California Edison customers face hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs if the utility’s credit rating is downgraded to junk after California failed to pass wildfire legislation

PG&E $PCG and Edison International $EIX shares are falling after California lawmakers blocked Gov. Newsom’s push to stop insurers from recovering wildfire losses from utilities. The proposal was part of a broader plan to limit utility wildfire liabilities. With the legislative session ending Aug. 31, the larger structural reforms now appear off the table.