The growth of the United States over the past 50 years has been closely tied to the emergence of cities, manufacturing and industry. Sadly, many industries and cities in the US have suffered from neglect in recent times. Vital industrial and commercial properties were abandoned leaving behind wasted and often impaired, referred to as brownfields.
While brownfields may carry the stigma of environmental degradation, government leaders now realize that brownfields also provide new, exciting, and promising opportunities to revitalize and build sustainable communities. Sustainable communities are complex. Sustainability and sustainable development is designed to meet the needs of the present without sacrificing the needs for the future. A sustainable community must therefore be designed in a way that balances the social, economic, and environmental needs now and beyond.
The city of Trenton New jersey in Mercer County lost more than half of its manufacturing base between 1950 and 1990, leaving the City with many abandoned industrial buildings, several of which pose a potential environmental threat, not to mention adverse social impact on the surrounding communities. To address an estimated 100 brownfield sites, Trenton has developed a program to systematically identify and prioritize sites for remediation and reuse. Twelve brownfield sites, of various sizes and characteristics, have been targeted by city officials for redevelopment and have achieved a level of remediation that would allow for immediate planning and construction. Trenton has received a grant through federal brownfields initiatives to begin this process.
Your consulting company has the exciting opportunity to redevelop 10 acres of these twelve remediated brownfields in the historic city of Trenton, NJ. Your company will be competing with other companies for this opportunity.
You must create a presentation for the Trenton City Council, who will determine which proposal will be funded. You have an important challenge. While many cities in the United States, including Trenton, have been engaging in brownfield redevelopment since the late 1990s, most projects have focused on exclusively on economic development and not sustainability. The criteria for judging will be based on the ability of the proposal to create a to create a sustainable community. This success will be assessed using several social, economic and environmental indicators.