Process Streamlined for Redevelopment of Urban Brown-fields

The November 2009 Architectural Record article, "Is Brown the New Green?", discusses how three urban brown-fields are being redeveloped into research-oriented mixed-use communities.  In the post-industrial American city, brown-fields are tracts of urban land that have been contaminated and left abandoned or underutilized.  The upside of this type of site is the central location- in proximity to transportation, workforce, and in the case of these projects, proximity to universities or hospitals.  Challenges that have traditionally been associated with the redevelopment of brown-fields, such as cleanup costs, have been lessened as the process becomes streamlined.  Developers have become more familiar with the process, the regulatory framework is in place, and subsidies have become more available as the public benefits of these projects are recognized.  Take a look at these successful projects at MIT, Wake Forest University, and Seattle suburb, South Lake Union.