Rex LaMore
Senior Specialist-Outreach, Urban & Regional Planning Program
Director, MSU Center for Community & Economic Development

Domicology, The study of policies, practices, and consequences of structural abandonment.
In the United States 136 million tons of waste per year, or nearly 40% of all construction/demolition and municipal solid waste, is generated by building related construction, demolition, and renovation projects. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reported that vacant homes that were not on the market for sale or rental, and could be classified as abandoned, reached a record high in 2012 at 7.4 million. Both studies point to the growing issue of property and structural abandonment for both commercial and residential parcels. With these growing abandonment issues come the issue of government intervention on abandoned properties, the funding of such operations, and then the high quantity waste stream generated from demolition. More…

Also see recent MSU research about Domicology…

About Rex LaMore
Rex LaMore is director of Michigan State University’s Center for Community Economic Development and a member of the faculty of the Urban and Regional Planning Program.

LaMore has more than 40 years of experience in community and economic development and has focused his career on the unique challenges of revitalizing distressed communities and policies and practices related to promoting equitable and sustainable development.

He provides leadership in a number of federal, state, foundation and privately funded research and outreach partnerships. He is the founding director of the University Center for Regional Economic Innovation at Michigan State University, funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. The center was established in 2011 to co-create, disseminate, and apply innovative economic development tools, models, policies and practices in distressed communities.

He is also the founder of the “Science of Domicology” a fundamentally new conception of the built environment and the life cycle of structures.

LaMore’s instructional roles have included teaching Environmental Planning, MSU’s Urban Planning Field Practicum course for undergraduate and graduate students, Urban Policy, and Community Economic Development. This past year he taught a special topics course for MSU students on Domicology, the first of its kind at MSU.

LaMore served as the president for the Michigan Association of Planning in 2016-17. He is the past chairperson and current vice-chairperson of the Williamstown Township Planning Commission which adopted the state’s first “Green Zone” land-use classification.

LaMore has received numerous awards for his work including the International Community Development Society’s Distinguished Service Award, the Michigan Economic Developers Association Mike Conboy Award for Outstanding Contributions in Education, and in 2011 he was recognized by his peers and awarded the Michigan State University, Distinguished Academic Specialist Award.

He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Michigan State University and his doctorate from the University of Michigan.