Brownfields is the name given to lands that have been in commercial/industrial use and no longer needed for that purpose. They are often contaminated with industrial and chemical waste, which poses a potential danger for future development. Cities may need the land, but cleaning it up can be far from straightforward. How come?
The United Kingdom has been enticing others to undertake the cleanup. But a free market developer, whether for housing or commercial space, has little incentive to take on cleaning up when unknown, and even deadly, consequences may result. The UK has been giving developers tax breaks and/or by-law exemptions as incentives to clean up sites.
This strategy has consequences, including the construction of homes that under any other circumstances would be considered unhealthy. For example, there are small apartments without any windows. Ironically, the government rents this substandard housing extensively to provide temporary accommodation to local families experiencing homelessness and to refugees who make their way across the English Channel.
Meanwhile, Flensburg in Germany is taking another approach: land recycling. Local and regional government(s) split the cost of remediating sites that are no longer used by industry. This allows Flensburg to encourage developers to build without second-guessing the cost of remediation, and without lowering local community construction standards for housing and other uses.
Read more in TheMAYOR: What’s land recycling? Read about this German example
For those curious about brownfields and land recycling, there’s a good Wikipedia article on the subject. It discusses the consequences of failing to control the management of city land resources, which can lead to serious community costs of urban sprawl.
