Reclaiming Brownfields: A Comparative Analysis of Adaptive Reuse of Contaminated Properties (Global Urban Studies)

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.

Richard C. Hula is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, Laura A. Reese is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Global Urban Studies Program (GUSP) and Cynthia Jackson-Elmoore is Dean of the Honors College, a Professor with faculty appointments in Social Work and Political Science and an affiliation with the Global Urban Studies Program, all at Michigan State University, USA.