ABSTRACT
Although, as Chapter 1 has illustrated, the rhetoric of sustainability permeates much central government policy in Ireland, little has been achieved in a range of areas to actually put the aspirations into practice. Perhaps the greatest barrier to the embedding of the concept within current urban policy is structural, given that it requires an unprecedented holistic approach to land management and development, an integration of all environmental policy areas including those impacting on human health through soil, air, water or groundwater pollution and the courage to embrace a range of actors and techniques within the urban environment. Former industrial, under-utilised or derelict areas provide all of these challenges and quite possibly because of this have been sidelined and dealt with in a piecemeal fashion, regeneration only being perceived as a by-product of, as opposed to the rationale for, broader rejuvenation. Much of the international literature contends that the major barrier to such ‘brownfield’ regeneration globally is economic, that it is simply too costly to remediate and recycle this land, conveniently ignoring the fact that brownfields have been created because of economic structural change. This realisation could become the first step towards developing an integrated approach to problem-solving, given that it would demand not just environmental, but also social and community solutions to be considered. The goals of orchestrating the competing demands of economic growth, ecological and social vitality at national level and providing the tools to implement them at local level have become perceived as insurmountable. This chapter reviews why such areas have a critical role to play in encouraging urban sustainability through a range of international case studies, and it examines the policy context and progress towards brownfield regeneration in Ireland.
