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
Newark Kicks Off $1 Home Sale Program
The city sold seven properties as part of an effort to revive blighted sites and encourage housing production.
Construction Costs Holding Steady During Pandemic
It might have been wishful thinking to assume the pandemic would cause big declines in costs for materials and labor in the construction industry.
Major Milestone for Chicago-Area Land Bank
The Cook County Land Bank Authority recently participated in its 500th rehab project. Homeowners and entrepreneurs have benefitted along the way.
Florida Considers Legalizing ADUs
Current state law allows — but doesn’t require — cities to permit accessory dwelling units in single-family residential neighborhoods.
HUD Announces Plan to Build Housing on Public Lands
The agency will identify federally owned parcels appropriate for housing development and streamline the regulatory process to lease or transfer land to housing authorities and nonprofit developers.
Conservatives’ Decongestion Pricing Flip-Flop
When it comes to solving traffic problems, the current federal administration is on track for failure, waste, and hypocrisy.
Research Shows More Roads = More Driving
A national study shows, once again, that increasing road supply induces additional vehicle travel, particularly over the long run.
Can Progressive Planners Appeal to Conservative Principles?
Trump’s approach to policies like NYC’s congestion pricing isn’t just irrational and wasteful — it defies the tenets of conservatism. But there are ways to reframe the issues.
Oak Park Plans Earth Month Events
Join Oak Park, Illinois, for a series of Earth Month events highlighting the importance of community engagement and education, integrating sustainability into local plans, and planning for the most vulnerable, such as birds, bees and butterflies.
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.
Florida Atlantic University
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
City of Piedmont, CA
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
City of Cambridge, Maryland