A new report offers a detailed assessment of how school construction decisions are made in Michigan, and their effect on development patterns.
A new report by the Michigan Land Use Institute, Hard Lessons: Causes and Consequences of Michigans School Construction Boom, is the first detailed assessment of how school construction decisions whether to renovate existing buildings or build new schools on green fields are made in Michigan, and their effect on development patterns. Hard Lessons, which reports the results of a joint project of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Michigan Land Use Institute, finds that new school construction is accelerating Michigan's sprawling patterns of development. A 1994 school financing law had the effect of making it easier to build new schools in farm fields. Since 1996, according to the study, school districts built at least 500 new schools in Michigan and closed 278 older ones while the school age population grew by just 4.5 percent. Even though southeast Michigan will lose 1.5 percent of its school age population within 30 years, according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, that region recently spent $6.2 billion on expanding or building new schools.
Thanks to Keith Schneider
FULL STORY: Hard Lessons

Alabama: Trump Terminates Settlements for Black Communities Harmed By Raw Sewage
Trump deemed the landmark civil rights agreement “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy.”

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

The 120 Year Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees
More than a century ago, San Francisco mobilized to house thousands of residents displaced by the 1906 earthquake. Could their strategy offer a model for the present?

Rural Missouri Transit Service Could Lose State Funding
OATS Transit offers low-cost rides to primarily elderly rural residents with little or no access to other transportation options.

Opinion: California’s SB 79 Would Improve Housing Affordability and Transit Access
A proposed bill would legalize transit-oriented development statewide.

Record Temperatures Prompt Push for Environmental Justice Bills
Nevada legislators are proposing laws that would mandate heat mitigation measures to protect residents from the impacts of extreme heat.
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.
Clanton & Associates, Inc.
Jessamine County Fiscal Court
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service