Describe brownfield redevelopment and its benefits.

• A. It involves converting greenfield sites to agriculture to reduce urban density.
• B. It is the demolition of all brown buildings on a site to create parking.
• C. Brownfield redevelopment repurposes polluted or underutilized urban sites for new uses; benefits include reduced sprawl, revitalized neighborhoods, cleanup of contamination, and preservation of greenfields.
• D. It refers to expanding city boundaries through annexation.

Answer: (C)

Brownfield redevelopment involves taking polluted or underutilized sites within existing urban areas and repurposing them for new uses, such as housing, offices, retail, or public space, after cleaning up any contamination and preparing the site for new development. The benefits come from investing in land that’s already inside the city’s boundaries, which helps prevent sprawl by avoiding development on greenfields at the urban fringe. It also breathes new life into neighborhoods through new investment, jobs, and improved amenities, while addressing environmental health concerns by cleaning up contamination. By focusing growth on these already-developed parcels, it helps preserve greenfields and natural areas elsewhere, supports efficient use of existing infrastructure, and can strengthen the local tax base.

Other options miss the point: changing greenfield land to agriculture doesn’t reuse existing urban land or address contamination; demolishing brown buildings to make parking doesn’t redevelop the site or tackle redevelopment of underused urban spaces; expanding city boundaries through annexation is a governance or growth strategy, not a redevelopment of polluted or underutilized inner-city sites.