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

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

Chicago’s Ghost Rails
Just beneath the surface of the modern city lie the remnants of its expansive early 20th-century streetcar system.

Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail
The agency plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce and has confirmed it will not fund new high-speed rail projects.

Ohio Forces Data Centers to Prepay for Power
Utilities are calling on states to hold data center operators responsible for new energy demands to prevent leaving consumers on the hook for their bills.

MARTA CEO Steps Down Amid Citizenship Concerns
MARTA’s board announced Thursday that its chief, who is from Canada, is resigning due to questions about his immigration status.

Silicon Valley ‘Bike Superhighway’ Awarded $14M State Grant
A Caltrans grant brings the 10-mile Central Bikeway project connecting Santa Clara and East San Jose closer to fruition.
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