Sustainable Brownfield Regeneration - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 1098

States Environmental Protection Agency) held its biennial Brownfields conference
in Detroit. At the time, Downtown Detroit had many empty downtown properties
and traffic free streets. Yet the sprawling suburbs were characterised by low density
housing on a rectilinear grid (Fig. 25.7 ).
Long term success in regeneration is possible. Cities such as Bilbao, Manchester,
Glasgow and even war ravaged Beirut have shown it is possible to reinvent and
reattract. Incremental progress must sometimes be accompanied by step-changes
whether externally imposed (e.g., Manchester or Detroit) or internally engineered
(e.g. Glasgow). However, what the regeneration process in many successful cities
seem to have in common is vision.
25.11 The Need for Vision
Failing to plan is planning to fail
This chapter began with the recognition that right regeneration is regeneration that
lasts. However urban land management is a slow process: the champions of the
London 2012 Olympics have asked to be judged in 2050 when the fruits of their
regeneration efforts in East London can be properly evaluated. Canary Wharf took
two owners to bankruptcy before it became a lynchpin of the world's finance system.
The O2 emerged phoenix-like from the ashes of the reputation of the millennium
dome.
Foxell ( 2008 , p. 235) reports that much of Richard Rogers 1986 “London as
it could be” master plan for a Royal Academy exhibition “have become reality”.
Rogers ( 2007 ) “felt great opportunities to improve the capital were being ignored in
favour of a piecemeal approach to planning, led by market forces rather than by any
consideration of the wider public interest”. Roger's vision revolved around the twin
axes of the Thames Embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars and “the route
across the Thames from Waterloo station (already projected as the terminus of the
new Channel Tunnel rail link) to Trafalgar Square.” 2
CABERNET recognised that Brownfields provide essential room for manoeuvre
in urban land management (Fig. 25.8 ). If there is no available space within the urban
footprint the only options for developers are to expand the footprint, leading to urban
sprawl, or to build higher and deeper. Brownfields provide essential flexibility within
urban systems. As St Pancras welcomed its first Eurostars, the next use for Waterloo
International was to be a return to domestic rail following a refurbishment due to
take until 2014 (Glaspool 2009 ). The City of London has a high percentage, of an
admittedly very small area, declared as PDL in its National Land Use Database
returns, but that most of such “Brownfields” is A-type and rapidly redeveloped by
private sector developers.
2 Waterloo was the London terminus for the Eurostar between 14th November 1994 13th November
2007 when Paddington International opened.