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Brownfields in Historical Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2005

H. S. Gorman
Affiliation:
Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University
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Extract

The notion of a brownfield brings to mind sites littered with the remains of past industrial activity: crumbling buildings, frozen machinery, and railroad tracks overgrown with weeds. To anybody interested in an area's history and cultural heritage, such sites can be potential treasures (Brown, 2001; Quivik, 2001). But to others, especially city officials struggling to maintain a solid tax base and neighbors worried about safety and property values, these sites are more likely to be seen as blights on the landscape, pieces of industrial property that have been used, discarded, and left for another generation to deal with (Jakle and Wilson, 1992). Unlike “greenfields,” vacant pieces of property that have never been developed, brownfields come with the risk of contamination and the costs of demolition and cleanup.

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FEATURES
Copyright
© 2003 National Association for Environmental Professionals

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