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Recycling America's Land: A National Report on Brownfields Redevelopment

Recycling America's Land: A National Report on Brownfields Redevelopment is the sixth Brownfields report from the United States Conference of Mayors. This report documents the problems of brownfields redevelopment faced by local communities throughout the U.S. and identifies the opportunities lost when properties remain idle and abandoned. Recycling America's Land quantifies some of the benefits from brownfields redevelopment efforts across the country with cities responding their positive results from land recycling and the return of brownfields to productive uses.

More then 200 cities provided information regarding brownfields in their communities. In the 2006 survey, 172 estimated that they had more than 23,810 brownfields sites, with the average size of a brownfield site being approximately between 5 and 15 acres. There were 158 cities estimating that Brownfield properties comprised of 96,039 acres of land, representing potential new jobs and land tax revenue. More then 120 cities estimated that 2,579 sites have been ''Mothballed,'' defined as sites that the current owner has no intention of redeveloping or selling due to environmental concerns. These are sites that owners would prefer to remain idle and unused rather than turn these sites over for development.

The 2006 report again demonstrates that brownfields not only affect large urban areas, but also suburban and rural landscapes as well. The previous report stated that nearly a third of the respondents were from cities with populations under 50,000 and this report had the same results. Additionally, 60 percent of the respondents were from cities with populations under 100,000.

The cities again identified the major obstacles to the redevelopment of brownfield sites. In this report, 'Cleanup Funds' was the most frequently identified impediment, cited by 86 percent of the respondents. The next two major impediments again were 'Liability Issues' and the need for 'Environmental Assessment.' This is the same result for the last five reports.

This is the sixth report published by The U.S. Conference of Mayors describing the status of brownfields in the United States. The purpose of this report is to build upon the four previous reports by compiling new information from the nation’s cities on the status of brownfields and the impact these properties have on communities. The information in this report has been added to The U.S. Conference of Mayors National Brownfields Database to help track local efforts in redeveloping these properties.

35 pages (0.6mb); available online as a PDF document at the resource link below.

Resource: http://www.usmayors.org/74thannualmeeting/brownfieldsreport_060506.pdf

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