It's more than just a bad view. Ever wonder why that old factory site or gas station was never redeveloped, but instead left to look sad, overgrown, and forgotten? That's an example of a brownfield-essentially, any property that has previously been developed and now bears the stigma (deserved or otherwise) of being contaminated. There may or may not be hazardous materials present in brownfield land; in any case, developers tend to shy away from these properties, in favor of more pristine, never-developed "greenfields"-mostly out of fear of liability. There is no official count, but it is estimated that there are anywhere from 400,000 to over a million brownfields within the United States. There is a movement afoot to responsibly redevelop these abandoned lands to improve the social, economic, and environmental status of communities.

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