The afterlives of toxic waste sites: Tracking the longitudinal urban development outcomes of contaminated soils

Abstract

Calls for land frugality and densification foster interest for brownfield remediation and redevelopment. Existing research often focuses on successful case studies and best redevelopment practices, providing a biased view of the actual development trajectories of brownfields over time. In response, this article proposes a longitudinal study of 41 toxic waste disposal sites identified in 1985 by Québec’s Ministry of Environment in the metropolitan region of Montréal, historically marked by intense industrial activity followed by deindustrialization. It documents their development pathways four decades later with regards to dominant use and ownership evolution. Complicating the narrative of remediation success towards high-value activities like housing and commerce, it finds that more than half of these sites are abandoned or used for logistics and parking in two main spatial clusters, while over a quarter are parks. In terms of ownership evolution, most sites have stayed in either private or public hands over four decades. The article also finds evidence of ownership transfer from polluting private firms to the State, financially responsible for remediation, leading to the socialization of cleanup costs and to environmental injustice. Potential reasons explaining the obduracy of toxic waste sites and their limited transformation include their peripheral location, a North American tendency towards sprawl, the toxic legacies of oil refining in the Montréal region, and soft regulation. This study has implications for urban researchers and professionals looking for a fresh longitudinal assessment of the development trajectories of toxic brownfields.