The Rehabilitation of Contaminated Land to Enhance Future Options for Cities

The rehabilitation of contaminated land is a potentially attractive solution for cities that are under growing pressure to find new sources of land for housing and new sources of socio-economic revitalisation. Although it is sometimes a complex, expensive and lengthy process, remediating contaminated sites can make a positive contribution to the sustainability of a city. It does so by ensuring that land is not left unproductive and potentially harmful to people or the environment and instead is given a new purpose that is tailored to the needs of surrounding communities. Two cities discussed in this chapter—Hong Kong and Glasgow—demonstrate some of the potential benefits of rehabilitating urban contaminated land, as well as the problems commonly encountered. Case studies for these two cities highlight the need for rehabilitation to be carefully planned and managed so that the needs of residents and other site users are met in a timely manner. There is a growing recognition by city planners in both Scotland and Hong Kong that the reuse of contaminated land has a role to play in their future urban vision.