Brownfield Sites in Minneapolis-St. Paul: The Interwoven Geographies of Industrial Disinvestment and Environmental Contamination

In contrast to the formal legal definition of brownfields which focuses on environmental and legal barriers to property redevelopment, this paper reconceptualizes brownfields as the product of the interwoven geographies of industrial disinvestment and environmental contamination. An empirical analysis of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area demonstrates that brownfields cannot be understood apart from the dynamics of urban industrial investment and disinvestment. Spatial restructuring of industrial activity over the past half century has resulted in significant disinvestment in core city and inner-suburban industrial districts and is at the root of the brownfield problem. The abundance of brownfield sites is highly correlated with historic levels of industrial activity and negatively correlated with changes in industrial property values. The results of this study support the recent public policy turn that attempts to address the dual urban-economic and environmental nature of brownfields.