The Chicago Brownfields Initiative was born of a high profile and well-respected public planning process to change the "brownfields" project from one that relied on liability to one that relied on private investment to clean up and redevelop contaminated surplus land. Its recommendations successfully shaped many of the state and federal tools in use 15 years later. Today, despite a large portfolio of unremediated brownfields, the project has lost its visibility and urgency. Using interviews with program stakeholders past and present and other materials, the thesis examines why the program's political cachet waned and the problem narrowed to focus on real estate development apart from broader disinvestment challenges. Using data from the Illinois Site Remediation Program and other Chicago geospatial data, this thesis shows that the results of an incomplete Initiative were mixed, specifically the geographic distribution of site remediation and the success of publicly initiated projects. The case of the Initiative provides insight into the complexities of environmental, economic development and redevelopment policy in the City of Chicago and why a truly "green" city is difficult to achieve. This thesis argues that the City of Chicago, in the context of a region experiencing similar economic and environmental questions, is poised to transform the urban brownfields project again, from a real estate scheme to a multi-faceted system that does not wait for investment, but shapes demand to guide clean-up and redevelopment in the city.

Virtually every city in the nation's older industrial regions, no matter its size, grapples with the challenge of unused or abandoned manufacturing facilities and other industrial sites. Local public officials, economic development practitioners, and site owners who have sought to revitalize fallow industrial properties face daunting challenges: contamination of the buildings, equipment, and surrounding land and water. Public concern about health effects from hazardous chemicals, changing environmental law, and evolving private sector development and financing priorities have made it increasingly difficult for communities to restore and reuse former manufacturing sites. This study, sponsored by the Northeast-Midwest Institute, offers analysis and practical guidance on how these blighted areas—brownfields—have been and can be brought back to life.

Written for real estate lawyers, environmental lawyers, property owners, lenders, environmental consultants, environmental regulators, state or local government leaders and developers.

This book focuses on the problems facing the public and private sectors and the engineering and scientific communities in terms of the decrease of available new land for development purposes. Given the economic and social benefits of brownfields redevelopment, there is a need for guidance on processes that ensure the acceptability and therefore viability of such redevelopment. The preparation of the guidance requires further research as well as the sharing of information, lessons and experience among experts in this field. Featuring papers from the Third International Conference on Prevention, Assessment, Rehabilitation and Development of Brownfield Sites, the text will be vital to practitioners and businessmen in industry and commerce as well as those in research organisations interested in the problems facing the prevention, assessment, rehabilitation and development of brownfields. The papers published in the book are grouped into the following sections: Development Issues; Environmental Assessment; Risk Assessment and Management; Cleanup Methodologies; Case Studies; Community and Public Involvement; Lessons from the Field; Modelling and Assessment; Monitoring of Contaminated Sites.

The environmental legacy of past industrial and agricultural development can simultaneously pose serious threats to human health and impede reuse of contaminated land. The urban landscape around the world is littered with sites contaminated with a variety of toxins produced by past use. Both public and private sector actors are often reluctant to make significant investments in properties that simultaneously pose significant potential human health issues, and may demand complex and very expensive cleanups. The chapters in this volume recognize that land and water contamination are now almost universally acknowledged to be key social, economic, and political issues. How multiple societies have attempted to craft and implement public policy to deal with these issues provides the central focus of the book. The volume is unique in that it provides a global comparative perspective on brownfield policy and examples of its use in a variety of countries.

The US. EPA defines brownfields as "idle real property, the development or improvement of which is impaired by real or perceived contamination." The authors of Principles of Brownfield Regeneration argue that, compared to "greenfields"-farmland, forest, or pasturelands that have never been developed-brownfields offer a more sustainable land development choice. They believe that brownfields are central to a sustainable planning strategy of thwarting sprawl, preserving or regenerating open space, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and reinvesting in urbanized areas. This is the first book to provide an accessible introduction to the design, policy, and technical issues related to brownfield redevelopment. After defining brownfields and advocating for their redevelopment, the book describes the steps for cleaning up a site and creating viable land for development or open space. Land use and design considerations are addressed in a separate chapter and again in each of five case studies that make up the heart of the volume: The Steel Yard, Providence, RI; Assunpink Greenway, Trenton, NJ; June Key Community Center Demonstration Project, Portland, OR; Eastern Manufacturing Facility, Brewer, ME; and The Watershed at Hillsdale, Portland, OR. Throughout, the authors draw on interviews with people involved in brownfield projects as well as on their own considerable expertise.