Emily Badger of The Atlantic Cities explores the economic and environmental advantages of refurbishing old buildings over constructing new ones.
Badger suggests that cities should start looking towards retrofitting and repairing pre-existing homes, rather than using their limited funds to spend on materials for new home construction.
Heidi Garrett-Peltier, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, ran some data to support this claim, and found that "repairing existing residential buildings produces about 50 percent more jobs than building new ones. Nationally, about 41 percent of the cost of residential repair goes to labor. For new construction, that number is just 28 percent, meaning considerably more than half of any investment in a new home goes not to construction jobs, but to materials, equipment and things like trucking services."
John McIlwain, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute noted in the article that, "There's hardly a city that doesn't have housing stock that's in need of rehabilitation or retrofitting." It's not that we don't need new homes, it's that we certainly can use a lot of what we have."
FULL STORY: Another Reason to Stop Building New Homes: Job Creation

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

In Urban Planning, AI Prompting Could be the New Design Thinking
Creativity has long been key to great urban design. What if we see AI as our new creative partner?

Cal Fire Chatbot Fails to Answer Basic Questions
An AI chatbot designed to provide information about wildfires can’t answer questions about evacuation orders, among other problems.

What Happens if Trump Kills Section 8?
The Trump admin aims to slash federal rental aid by nearly half and shift distribution to states. Experts warn this could spike homelessness and destabilize communities nationwide.

Sean Duffy Targets Rainbow Crosswalks in Road Safety Efforts
Despite evidence that colorful crosswalks actually improve intersection safety — and the lack of almost any crosswalks at all on the nation’s most dangerous arterial roads — U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy is calling on states to remove them.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Appalachian Highlands Housing Partners
Gallatin County Department of Planning & Community Development
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
Mpact (founded as Rail~Volution)
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
City of Portland
City of Laramie