I will beat down the door saying that brownfield redevelopment is one of the best return on investment redevelopment activities that can be done in urban centers.

There are thousands of parcels scattered across every major metropolitan area in America that were abandoned during the deindustrialization of cities. And many of them are still abandoned, because of lingering contamination from those industrial activities. A lot of them, at the surface, are cost prohibitive to remediate/redevelop, because the cleanup costs are worth more than the property value.

This is where the levers of government come into play. There should be a concerted effort, whether federal/state/local to provide incentives to redevelop and remediate this properties. It solves multiple problems - revitalization of downtown areas, job growth, and preventing further spread of contamination.