Brownfields Gentrification: Redevelopment Planning and Environmental Justice in Spokane, Washington

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between brownfields redevelopment and urban gentrification processes. Examples from both the national environmental justice literature as well as a short case study from Spokane, Washington illustrate that the redevelopment of contaminated brownfields is central to gentrification processes and that justice advocates need to be aware of gentrification processes in brownfields communities. Brownfields—or contaminated postindustrial property—environmental justice scholars have found, are overwhelmingly found in low-income and minority communities. Federal brownfields redevelopment initiatives emerging in the mid 1990s have aimed to remedy these issues by remediating and redeveloping tainted sites, thus creating an urban landscape that poses fewer risks to environmental health and has improved the economic viability of brownfields communities. While brownfields redevelopment can “fix” many environmental justice problems, it also can create different issues, including gentrification, that threaten low-income communities. The article contends that since gentrification processes often have both social and environmental dimensions that are closely intermingled, environmental justice scholars should more closely examine socio-environmental issues such as gentrification in their research and advocacy.