Brownfields Development: From Individual Sites to Smart Growth

• Author: Joel B. Eisen
• Pages: 57-69

Chapter 5

Brownfields Development: From Individual

Sites to Smart Growth

Joel B. Eisen

In the late 1980s, communities across America faced a number of

obstacles to successful urban redevelopment. One obstacle, though

hardly the only one,1was “the fear and uncertainty associated with po-

tential environmental contamination [that] was seriously undermin-

ing efforts to keep urban areas vital.”2This fear of environmental con-

tamination focused on abandoned or underused urban sites that were

not already the target of federal environmental attention and enforce-

ment, such as those highly contaminated sites found on the National

Priorities List. These sites differ widely in their prior uses, including

former steel mills and other industrial properties, gas stations and

other commercial tracts, and even residential properties.

Collectively, these have come to be known as “brownfields.” Fed-

eral law today defines a brownfield site as “real property, the expan-

sion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the

presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or

contaminant.”3The term differentiates these sites from “greenfields,”

which are suburban and exurban locations that developers have been

thought to prefer for new construction.

Remediation and reuse of brownfields is a hallmark of sustainable

land use because the societal and economic benefits of remediating

and rehabilitating an underused urban parcel are often greater than

those of comparable development taking place at greenfields loca-

tions.4These benefits are mentioned frequently in the large (and

growing) body of brownfields literature, where brownfields redevel-

opment is seen as especially desirable because it meshes with the

goals of the smart growth movement. However, not all brownfields re-

development activity is “smart,” for development of individual sites

continues to be parcel-specific and state brownfields programs do not

fully integrate well-known benchmarks of sustainable development.

These benchmarks, to which this chapter’s recommendations are

linked, include:

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