Strategies for reclaiming urban postindustrial landscapes

Abstract

Expanding the primarily expert-driven and site-specific efforts to solve brownfield problems, this thesis develops a process framework for planners and developers to organize the brownfield redevelopment process through strategy formulation based on a site-context relationship with interacting social, economic, and ecological factors. This thesis explores the theory and practice associated with brownfield redevelopment and, through a broader perspective, postindustrial landscape reclamation. Key issues and ingredients for success in the brownfield redevelopment process are distilled from the investigation of two case studies, one of which is Nine Mile Run in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The process framework's design serves to recreate the general project context and scope represented by Nine Mile Run and promotes integrative planning and restorative redevelopment practice that augments brownfield redevelopment activity.