Economy
Another Reason to Stop Building New Homes: Job Creation
Repairing existing residential buildings produces about 50 percent more jobs than building new ones
Environmentalists have begun to embrace the idea that new, cutting-edge eco buildings don’t necessarily promise the best route to sustainability. Old buildings do. Rehabilitating them is considerably less wasteful – and more realistic – than replacing them all together. And the economy won’t support much new construction these days anyway.
But among all the reasons why cities should pour resources into retrofitting and repairing the housing stock they already have, here's one more: Residential redevelopment creates more jobs than new construction does. And it’s a safe bet that any city that has an aging, vacant or foreclosed housing problem right now has a jobs problem to go with it.