>On the question of lowering environmental standards: Dan McGrath here at
UIC has just
finished a thesis exploring the relation of industrial land redevelopment
and contamination
in Chicago. His findings suggest that developers discount land at about the
current clean-up
costs. From this one can argue that weakening environmental standards will
have little
effect on development. Interestingly, McGrath finds a powerful and independent
influence of race on redevelopment. He also finds that assembling larger
parcels encourages
redevelopment.
Joe Persky
