Research Papers, Boards, Gallery Walks and More!

My research paper is the foundation of my case against the fiscal responsibility argument for environmental regulations. I did this within the scope of brownfield development and presented the cases that there is opportunity for profit and private investment within revitalizing urban waste sites. Through this I worked to create a conversation where public and private goals could be met in public-private investment partnerships. This led me to provide several Texas-based examples where there has been major success. (I chose not to explicitly mention the Frisco project as I wanted to show ones that have yielded economic benefits; the Frisco project has yet, unless potentially people have moved here because of the promise of the Grand Park.) The primary two that I spoke about was one in Houston called Discovery Park and the other is Victory Park. I included Discovery Park through before and after photos on my poster board because I learned that this project has yielded six times over the initial investment of 125 million dollars. An important part that I wanted to incorporate into this discussion was the idea that developing underutilized brownfields has many benefits even if it cost more than it gave.

With the risk of rambling, brownfields affect property value, sense of place, crime, health outcomes, pollution, mitigation costs (kicking the can down the road effect), and increased stress on social services. These are all things that can be mitigated through development and becomes the responsibility of public actors (local, state, and federal government) to rebuild, however, on top of all of this that area can become an economically productive region that multiplies the investment several times over. This can attract private investment as they don’t care about the aforementioned public services–unless there is potentially a large real estate development agency that is worried about how the brownfield will impact property values or another similarly affected industry–who desire a favorable return on investment. Overall I am really excited about how this research has gone and I am excited to see how I can apply these ideas to potentially more tangible things or models.