Cleaning Up:
The context and goals of brownfield redevelopment
Sara Hinkley * March 31, 1998
bibliography * 261 topics * main brownfields page
Introduction
The past five years have witnessed the proliferation of government programs, private initiatives, and journal articles addressing the redevelopment of idle industrial properties, referred to as ‘brownfields.’ But three years after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched its brownfield initiative, serious questions remain about the effectiveness and future of brownfield redevelopment. One in particular looms ominously unanswered: Why all the attention to brownfields? (WMREI 1996) "An even more basic consideration is whether brownfields should be receiving so much attention and funding, when the underlying economic competitiveness and regulatory concerns have yet to be solved." (Iannone 1996: 44) Surprisingly, these questions are rarely asked, nor does the literature put forth a theoretical framework that could provide an answer. Instead, the literature on brownfields seems to be stuck on a "treadmill of descriptive studies" (Christenson 1989: 41, describing community development literature) and laundry lists of recommended reforms. The impact of brownfields on inner city economies, public health, and environmental quality has brought a wide range of players into the discourse, and led to the evolution of brownfield redevelopment from an environmental policy to a far-reaching, but unfortunately not comprehensive effort at economic development. The purposes and theoretical assumptions underlying brownfield redevelopment, and the position of brownfields in the larger context of economic development, are too often left unstated and unexamined.
That contaminated sites need to be cleaned up may be beyond meaningful debate, but agreement about such an amorphous (and almost certainly unattainable) objective does not render further discussion irrelevant. Complex questions about who should fund cleanup, how cities should set redevelopment priorities, and what environmental standards should be used remain unresolved 18 years after the passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as ‘Superfund’). Agreement that cities should be redeveloped or revitalized is not universal (see, e.g., Rybczynski 1995), and the means to such redevelopment are even more hotly contested (see, e.g., Porter 1995 and 1997, Sawicki 1995, Dymski 1995, Snow 1995).
The absence of critical analysis is particularly disturbing given the frequency with which liability limitations, relaxed cleanup standards, and substantial redevelopment incentives are recommended in the literature. Many authors fail to ponder seriously whether returning to a pre-Superfund regulatory environment will significantly enhance the prospects for urban redevelopment. The stakes in the brownfield debate are high. Not only do brownfield programs divert funds from other economic development strategies, popular recommendations for improving brownfield initiatives may jeopardize the environmental health of inner city residents for the sake of a few developers whose projects would be deterred by environmental regulation.
This paper begins the needed critical analysis of brownfields in the larger context of inner city revitalization, the context that most authors posit as the underlying purpose of brownfield redevelopment. There are three issues that need to be critically examined. The first is discerning the goals and objectives of the players in the brownfields arena, their individual definitions or conceptions of the problem, and the theoretical underpinnings (if any) of proposed solutions. The second is the appropriate (i.e. efficient or equitable) allocation of scarce resources, for both environmental cleanup and inner city economic development. The third issue is whether brownfields initiatives are in fact an economic development strategy, and if so, how should they be evaluated. I have focused primarily on the first issue. I will forgo reiteration of the techniques available to spur brownfield redevelopment, as this has been done thoroughly by the literature (see especially Bartsch 1997 and Collaton 1996).
What makes a brownfield a problem: defining the issues
Brownfield properties are both discrete problems and symptoms. The literature is conspicuously (but not openly) undecided about the definition of a brownfield, a term which preceded but is now characterized by Superfund. The earliest conception referred simply to abandoned industrial sites and served as a descriptive term for the physical effects of deindustrialization. Environmental contamination is introduced in the definition in various ways. The EPA’s official definition is "abandoned, idled or underused industrial and commercial properties where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived contamination." (EPA Fact Sheet) EPA’s working definition is alternately summarized as "a previous industrial site which is let undeveloped due to the uncertainty of liability and cleanup costs." (Solo 1995: 292) President Clinton referred to brownfields as "a term of art" to indicate "environmentally contaminated but otherwise attractive business sites in urban areas." (Clinton 1997) Each definition reveals the author’s conception of why brownfields remain idle; these different conceptions in fact define the brownfield discourse, and reveal the complexity of Superfund’s impact on the urban land market.
The most common conception of the problem (still used to introduce most brownfield literature) is that Superfund effectively prevents economic redevelopment of contaminated properties, and thus stymies both cleanup and urban revitalization. The earliest literature about brownfields concerns this effect of Superfund on economic development (i.e., decisions about property disposal and location choices by businesses and developers), and highlights the need for federal corrective action to encourage reinvestment in urban areas (Black 1995: 49; see generally Revesz 1995, Barnett 1994, and Hird 1994). Superfund’s provision for strict, joint and several, and retroactive liability for contamination certainly altered the behavior of potential and current developers, lenders, and owners of such properties. Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies abound concerning Superfund’s impact on firms’ investment decisions (see, e.g. Wetzel 1994, showing disparate impact on small firms; CHWM 1989). The literature is replete with horror stories of banks held liable for multi-million dollar clean ups, family drycleaners held liable for contamination they contributed only minimally to, and promising redevelopment projects held hostage by environmental regulations and litigation (Fischer; Church-Nakamura 1993). Reports of failed brownfield initiatives are strikingly less common (see Mooney 1996 for an example).
Much of this early brownfield literature borrows heavily from the idea that environmental regulation stymies economic growth, an argument that achieved significant credibility after the passage of Superfund, the federal government’s most ambitious and far-reaching effort to force industry to remediate hazardous contamination. "Since their inception 15 years ago, environmental cleanup laws have been at odds with urban economic development." (Black 1995: 47) Superfund’s perceived failure to prompt wide-scale cleanup, its imposition of onerous transaction costs, its allegedly chilling effect on property sales, investment, and redevelopment, and its daunting liability framework have remained the focus of much of brownfield literature, even after the introduction of EPA’s brownfield initiative in 1995. Other criticisms focus on the litigation costs of Superfund cleanup and the failure of massive cleanup success (Black 1995: 48; Tuttle 1997: 26, Superfund as a "windfall for lawyers").
Several authors continue to envision a relatively linear relationship between contamination and redevelopment potential. The President says "our cities are full of places which would be good for new investments were it not for the environmental liability starting investors in the face." (Clinton 1997) "The barrier to Brownfield development is the legacy of environmental contamination on sites and their surrounding areas." (Leigh 1994: 325; see also Collaton 1996: 18) Law review articles in particular tend to conceive of the problem as one of regulation (hence their interest in the topic), and focus on the regulatory complexity and onerousness of the liability framework (see generally Solo 1995, Grayson 1995, Wetzel 1994). Few authors acknowledge the failure of research to pinpoint a cause for lack of redevelopment or to establish a "causal link between businesses’ location decisions and perceived environmental costs." (Eisen 1996: 913) Surveys conducted to determine the cause have been inconclusive or admittedly biased, but many authors continue to base assumptions on them. One author even claims that it is possible to identify the point at which cleanup costs will cause developers to abandon a project (Connolly 1995: 35).
In addition to environmental contamination, the central problem of brownfield redevelopment is inextricably related to the competitiveness of urban land. Accordingly, many authors expand their problem definition to include obstacles to urban redevelopment generally. "The immediate culprits are three: low demand; lack of competitiveness; and liability provisions in federal legislation." (Iannone 1996: 64) Other hurdles mentioned include financial issues (funding availability, Goldsmith 1996, Bartsch 1996), costs of acquisition and site preparation (Urban 1996), perception of cleanup costs (Arrandale 1997), obsolete industrial structures (Fischer), rising property taxes from abandonment, and perception of contamination (Leigh 1995 and 1996).
The problem of competitiveness specifically contrasts urban property with suburban land, and in particular "virgin" properties outside central city boundaries. "Brownfields do not balance cities against the nation, they balance cities against suburbs." (Poindexter 1996: 12) Urban development is discouraged because of the cost differential between developing property in the city versus in suburban or exurban areas (Urban 1996: 282-282), and environmental regulation widens this cost differential because suburbs are less likely to contain contaminated properties (Poindexter 1995, Leigh 1996). Some authors have argued instead that the cost differential in fact favors cities, until environmental regulation is included as a decision cost item (Bartsch 1996, Kotval 1993, Lynd 1985). "Superfund requirements overshadow the many advantages that sites in older industrial areas offer." (Black 1995: 48; but see Collaton 1996)
Some authors argue further that the issue of competitiveness is complicated by several market failures. The abandonment of cities results from positive externalities of greenfield development, which are in turn caused by the failure of the market to correctly assess the costs of developing virgin land (including loss of open space), and by the negative externalities of inner city development, caused by misinformation and uncertainty (Kotval 1993, NEJAC 1996). The most direct correction for these externalities is valuing human, infrastructure, and environmental resources more accurately (see, e.g., Porter 1996, Eisen 1996: 1026), and removing government subsidies and regulations that favor new greenfields development over brownfield reuse (Black 1995: 51). Several brownfield initiatives, including the prominent Chicago Brownfields Forum, devote resources to identifying and comparing the environmental and social costs of brownfield versus greenfield development, as well as adjusting public incentives for greenfield development (Chicago 1995: 20 and 11). Uncertainty, lack of information, and the tendency of actors to overstate the risks associated with brownfields give rise to additional market failures (Yount 1994: 339).
Several authors characterize the problem as oversupply (relative to demand) of brownfield properties (or alternately stated, the undersupply of clean urban properties; Iannone 1995 and 1996). This problem is posited as a market imbalance that can be corrected by governmental action, such as holding surplus land or remediating relatively clean sites to increase the price of other contaminated sites (Simons 1997, Black 1995).
Finally, some authors extend their problem definition to include those broader issues of which brownfields are a symptom. Such broader conceptualizations include urban sprawl (Brooks 1995, Fischer), loss of greenfield open space, blight (Connolly 1995), wasted resources (land and infrastructure; Fischer), poor economic performance of cities, inequity of contaminated site location (Poindexter 1995, Manaster 1995), and job loss (Brooks 1995). The choice of problem definition has ramifications for the goals and strategies chosen. Each definition of the brownfield problem hints at a purpose or method of prioritization. If a brownfield is defined as a property that would be developed but for Superfund, then removing the regulatory barrier is the obvious solution. If the problem is more broadly characterized as urban decline, brownfields are immediately situated in a larger and more complex context.
Dream big, dream little: the many goals of brownfield redevelopment
The purpose of strategies suggested in the literature may be classified into two categories: (1) removing barriers to redevelopment; and (2) providing capital to distressed areas as a means to revitalization. The latter is a development method, targeting an area to attract industry and jobs, and the former a market-based method, removing barriers to create economic activity (Poindexter 1995: 46). Most of the literature fails to designate a particular purpose or provide a theoretical justification of brownfield redevelopment (see, e.g., Hudnut 1997, Simons 1997). Those that do articulate a purpose often fail to qualify it as subjectively-determined or to recognize the existence of different or even conflicting purposes. This failure is typical of the literature’s general lack of awareness or recognition of other literature in the field.
A few authors implicitly limit the purpose of suggested reforms to the first category, rolling the regulatory and liability framework back to pre-Superfund status - a type of free market advocacy (see e.g. Church-Nakamura 1993). Still more authors make no further claims about the expected effect on redevelopment, except to argue that Superfund has in fact stymied cleanup and hurt inner city economies. Viewed in this limited way, brownfield initiatives are a corrective mechanism, not an economic development strategy, but this view is rarely defended. An equally limited, and even more rarely represented, subset of this class is literature focusing entirely on the goal of maximizing environmental clean-up.
The second class of literature views brownfield redevelopment as a means for achieving broader, specifically economic objectives. Commonly-mentioned goals of brownfield redevelopment include the reversal of declining of inner cities, the improvement of competition between brownfield and greenfield properties for scarce developer dollars, the counteraction of urban sprawl by directing industrial location towards cities, and the creation of jobs. But the underlying purpose of most authors is urban economic revitalization, and the strongest historical foundation derives from the economic impact of industry’s large-scale abandonment of central cities (see e.g., Solo 1995). Lynd (1985) provides a historical perspective on this purpose. Writing in the middle of a period of deindustrialization, he uses labor, corporate responsibility, and social justice to argue that industry should choose brownfields over greenfields, to avoid displacing workers and causing the decline of cities. This historic emphasis on job creation is nearly always mentioned in current discourse. Two examples: "[Brownfield programs] have a two-fold policy directive: first, to preserve undeveloped green space for the good of society as a whole, and second, to alleviate the inner-city employment problem." (Poindexter 1995: 37) "By relying on the reuse of abandoned industrial sites, the Brownfields Programs approach implicitly the issue of poverty by addressing the employment vacuum caused by deindustrialization." (Poindexter 1996: 8)
Environmental justice
The provision of environmental justice to central city residents is a secondary purpose in many of the articles, but it provides perhaps the most robust justification for brownfield redevelopment. Much of the brownfields literature explicitly derives legitimacy from the theories and findings of the environmental justice movement (see, e.g., Poindexter 1995 and 1996, Fischer, Manaster 1995, Leigh 1996). "[T]he inescapable context for discussion of the Brownfields issue is environmental justice and urban revitalization." (NEJAC 1996) Preliminary analysis of the distributional impact of Superfund costs and benefits supports the hypothesis that the costs of environmental cleanup are borne disproportionately by the poor and people of color, and that the benefits often fall mainly outside those communities (Manaster 1995: 92; Cavanaugh 1995; Field 1996; Hird 1994: 117-139). Concern about this "impact elitism" shapes federal brownfield policy (NEJAC 1996) and is invoked by authors seeking to return environmental quality to the forefront of the policy debate (see, e.g., Ruben 1995). Some authors also use environmental justice theories to caution against over-enthusiasm about brownfields and relaxing environmental regulations. Those authors argue that inner city residents should not be forced to choose between jobs/economic growth and health/environmental safety – so-called "job blackmail." (Poindexter 1995: 55; Manaster 1995: 159 and 179)
Evaluation
Evaluation is especially problematic for brownfield initiatives because the purpose and problem definition remain unresolved. The "treadmill of case studies" provides interesting but non-statistical insight into the types of projects being implemented. There is a notable absence of critical assessment of the success of brownfield initiatives, particularly of state and local programs. Bartsch (1997) offers a preliminary assessment and analysis of factors contributing to successful projects, but the literature as a whole seems to find this critical analysis unnecessary. This absence may result from several factors: (1) the youth of brownfield initiatives; (2) the variety of purposes and philosophies underlying initiatives; or (3) the lack of a theoretical framework of brownfield redevelopment. The lack of evaluation makes strategy development difficult, because communities have little to reference about promising strategies. More importantly, it leaves brownfield redevelopment’s identity as a revitalization strategy unsupported by either empirical evidence or theory.
The literature does include some possible evaluation criteria (see, e.g., Poindexter 1996, Chicago Brownfields Forum 1995). The EPA’s criteria for evaluating applications to its pilot program provide the clearest outline of goals and evaluation measures. Among the areas to be assessed include the measurable environmental, economic and social impacts of brownfields on the community, evidence of the community’s commitment to solving brownfields problems, and a community involvement plan (emphasizing particularly those communities typically the victims of environmental injustice). Communities must also include a plan for ensuring that the project benefit "affected disadvantaged populations" both environmentally and economically, demonstrate how assessment, cleanup, and revitalization of brownfields will spur additional beneficial activity in nearby locations," and provide measures for evaluation, which may include environmental, economic, or other indicators (EPA Evaluation Criteria 1996). This combination of environmental justice and economic growth as evaluation criteria is typical of those authors that do include evaluation suggestions.
Contamination and the competitiveness of the inner city
As the most desirable brownfield sites are "creamed off" by developers, the problem will become even more clearly "fundamentally one of economic development." (Black 1995:51). But brownfield initiatives are unique to economic development in two ways. They emerged in response to a specific economic threat, and they trace their origin and federal leadership to the environmental arena, not economic development. They have, accordingly, been relatively sheltered from the ongoing discourse about where to focus economic development efforts. But if brownfield redevelopment is supported on the basis of its ability to revitalize economics, then brownfield initiatives must be considered as an economic development strategy. Evaluating brownfields in this context will permit the development of a coherent strategy and force a true accounting of the trade-offs between brownfield initiatives and other economic development programs. Despite the frequent use of economics language in the brownfield literature, only a handful of authors place brownfields squarely in this context. Thus, an important question is never asked: whether alternative incentive structures or measures to increase competitiveness might prompt brownfield cleanup, rather than vice versa. In other words, brownfield redevelopment may be better suited as an end than as a means. This question must be raised by policymakers and local economic development offices before deciding how (and whether) to allocate economic development resources to brownfield initiatives.
Whichever strategy is chosen, the long-term prospect for redevelopment of urban brownfields depends fundamentally on changes in the competitiveness of inner-city areas (Iannone 1996: 43; Glaser 1994). The current debate about inner city competitiveness therefore provides an essential framework for analyzing the potential of brownfields as an economic development strategy (see generally Porter 1995 and 1997; Holupka 1993; Wiewel 1993, Swartz 1994, Collaton 1996). Harvard business professor Michael Porter (1995) began a rich and heated dialogue about the factors hampering inner city competitiveness, which he identifies as security, building costs, land, utility costs, non-wage employee costs, employee and management skills, access to capital, community attitudes toward business, and business infrastructure. Porter also argues that in order to become competitive assets in the inner city, companies must locate there for economic reasons, not in response to subsidies. It must, in other words, be efficient for them to locate in the inner city, and the location must provide them with a competitive advantage. Porter also lists three market failure reasons why capital fails to invest in the inner city even when it would appear competitive: (1) "information imperfections," misperceptions and biases about inner city opportunities (or about contamination, for example, Leigh 1996, Arrandale 1997); (2) poor policies and leadership which dilutes the inner city’s competitive advantages; and (3) poor communication between the private (investing) sector and advocates for inner cities (Porter 1997: 17-18). Porter goes on to suggest that barriers to inner-city business development be lowered by "dispelling myths about inner cities that hold back investment, publicizing successful companies, developing strategies to help enhance the competitive advantages and ameliorate the present disadvantages of inner cities, and improving communication between the private sector and inner-city advocates." (Porter 1997: 18) Then, like many authors, Porter cites brownfield redevelopment as a major factor affecting competitiveness. But the laws affecting brownfields are uniform across cities and suburbs; unlike property taxes or onerous land use regulations, environmental laws affect all land equally. It is not environmental regulation that decreases the competitiveness of urban land, but the fact that inner cities contain a disproportionate amount of contaminated property. It would be a mistake to ameliorate this competitive disadvantage by removing means to protect public health. But it is precisely Porter’s logic that provides momentum to the rolling back of environmental legislation.
The future of brownfields
Brownfields is but one of dozens of programs purporting to address the problem of urban decline. The absence of a national urban policy has facilitated the treatment of brownfield redevelopment as an isolated strategy, masking the problem of competition over scarce resources and incentives (see Nenno 1996). Put simply, brownfield projects deprive funding for other economic development initiatives, some of which might be better at achieving the same goals. Even non-financed brownfield reform measures have nontrivial social costs that mandate close examination. As one author stated: "[a]ppeals for environmental regulatory relief is an old locational incentive that has worked often to the detriment of poor people." (Sawicki 1995: 84)
The question posed at the beginning of this paper - why brownfields? - is partially addressed by literature about enterprise zones, another "place-based" economic development strategy. One author argues that enterprise zones have been politically popular because they focus on an obviously needy community, provide the community with a more flexible and individualized strategy, and integrate development efforts (see generally Snow 1995). The focus on a needy place as the unit of assistance "contributes to the common good by restoring a sense of economic justice and fairness." (Snow 1995: 189) Several authors point to the ability of companies doing cleanup to "also achieve ‘non-balance sheet’ benefits, such as the public and municipal goodwill that goes with urban redevelopment and environmentally-sensitive business decisions." (Swenson 1996: 28) This sense of goodwill pervades the brownfield literature; brownfields appear to be surrounded by enthusiasm and confidence (see, e.g., Lerner 1996: 17). This perceived popularity and unanimity probably explains, at least in part, the absence of critical analysis of brownfield redevelopment. But this unanimity is illusory, and relying on it jeopardizes the long-term outlook for brownfield cleanup. If it proves to be a justified allocation of economic development resources, brownfield redevelopment must be evaluated and developed in comparison with other economic development strategies, rather than as a narrowly-defined development technique.
The success of brownfield initiatives, as well as the success of urban revitalization, will ultimately be determined by the ability of cities to meaningfully prioritize and target sites for redevelopment, and to fundamentally alter the economic balance between city and suburb. These changes will only happen if the focus is not on sites, but on economic relationships and appropriate market valuation of scarce resources (Iannone 1996: 64). The focus on incentives and tax abatements for brownfield redevelopment, as with any economic development strategy, is unsustainable and should only be used short-term in conjunction with a strategic vision of urban redevelopment. But few authors suggest any intelligible methods of prioritizing sites; most instead make vague references to targeting the most "viable" or "marketable" sites (see, e.g., Goldsmith 1996, Iannone 1995). Solo suggests that incentives be targeted to properties that are both most unlikely to be redeveloped without the credit and have the greatest likelihood of creating jobs and increased tax base (sites that one would expect to be few and far between) (Solo 1995: 321-322). Black suggests that beginning by remediating relatively clean properties will lead to "more effective cleanup of contaminated sites." (Black 1995: 51) This lack of sincere effort at prioritizing betrays either lack of vision or a belief that sites will simply be handpicked by developers, a view that is at once naïve and cynical.
Until the literature provides a set of purposes and theoretical justifications for continued emphasis on brownfield redevelopment, the strategy will remain undeveloped and vulnerable to replacement by the next hot initiative in the treadmill of urban policy. The abandonment of brownfield redevelopment as a specific focus of urban policy, unfortunately, would have potentially devastating public health and environmental impacts that are unlikely to be corrected in the current political environment. For this reason, it is crucial that brownfields be made an integral part of economic development, both theoretically and strategically.