While residential construction fell two percent last year, private commercial construction went up 16 percent and public construction 10 percent, according to the US Census Bureau. The Christian Science Monitor’s Ron Scherer reports that new hotel construction was up 52 percent over 2005, factory construction 20 percent and office building rose 18 percent. Commercial construction has even absorbed many residential construction workers. Last month, 80,000 jobs were lost in residential construction while commercial contractors hired 180,000 workers.

The Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC) offers an Illinois Guide to Healthy, High Performing School Construction which provides an impressive list of links and web resources on green school construction, and explores less traditional issues such as hand washing facilities, student-to-cafeteria-size ratio, kitchen design to facilitate healthy food prep, and design standards for school health centers.