Reclaiming Brownfields

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.

This volume on brownfields reclamation is a much welcomed scholarly endeavor and an impressive achievement. While much research involving brownfields and urban environmental problems function with imposed definitions and disparate analyses, this research provides a much needed holistic and integrated approach to brownfields specifically, but also the larger urban environmental policy arena in general. Though focused, the major achievement of this exceptional effort is its treatment and placement of urban environmental challenges within a larger context that recognizes and evaluates pollution, people, and place in a comparative and adaptive manner never before done. Such an approach is a major theoretical and practical breakthrough for both scholars and practitioners seeking to assess, evaluate, and resolve urban environmental policy issues. Yet, the greatest triumph of this research is the comparative approach that further underscores the contemporary nature of urban environmental challenges by recognizing that these issues are in fact common across urban areas across the globe. While the international community has recognized our shrinking world across financial, political, and social sectors, this research injects urban environmental policy issue into that global community conversation-a long overdue advance. Hunter Bacot, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA

• I: Policy; 1: Incentives for Collaboration; 2: Changing Agendas in State Environmental Policy; 3: Revitalizing Contaminated Land in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States; 4: Redevelopment Strategy of Brownfield Sites in the Czech Republic; II: Implementation and Evaluation; 5: Exploring the Potential for Integrating Community Benefits Agreements into Brownfield Redevelopment Projects; 6: The Quantitative and Qualitative Impacts of Brownfield Policies in England; 7: New Urban Communities; 8: The Inertia of Environmental Regulatory Enforcement in China; 9: Strategic Land Management in Germany; III: Brownfield Case Studies; 10: Fostering Brownfields Development in Rust Belt Cities; 11: Institutional Network Management in Brownfield Cleanup and Redevelopment; 12: From Blighted Brownfields to Healthy and Sustainable Communities; 13: Michigan Brownfield Redevelopment Innovation