The need to slash emissions from buildings is increasingly urgent, and critics say LEED won't get us there.

Green building is a $1 trillion global industry, and in it, LEED is king. Many states link tax incentives to achieving LEED certification, and new federal buildings are now required to attain the Gold standard. In 2017, Washington, D.C. became the world's first LEED Platinum city.
But as LEED and its administrator, the U.S. Green Building Council, have grown, so has criticism of the program. Its impacts are said to be exaggerated, with calculations based on ideal design impacts rather than real-life operations. Even one of LEED's creators, Bob Berkebile, calls the certification "a failure."
In CityLab, Brian Barth looks into the shortcomings of the LEED empire, weighing the merits of the more common critiques and charting attempts to dethrone the far-reaching program (the Living Building Challenge, for example.) Ultimately, though, we may not yet have the tool that can spur the decarbonization of the world's building stock—one that has both the high standards to achieve a truly sustainable footprint, and the mass appeal to penetrate the global building industry.
FULL STORY: Is LEED Tough Enough for the Climate-Change Era?

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.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Adaptive Reuse Will Create Housing in a Suburban Texas Strip Mall
A developer is reimagining a strip mall property as a mixed-use complex with housing and retail.

Study: Anti-Homelessness Laws Don’t Work
Research shows that punitive measures that criminalized unhoused people don’t help reduce homelessness.

In U.S., Urban Gondolas Face Uphill Battle
Cities in Latin America and Europe have embraced aerial transitways — AKA gondolas — as sustainable, convenient urban transport, especially in tricky geographies. American cities have yet to catch up.
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