Chicago enjoys a national reputation as a city in the forefront of the “green” movement, thanks in large part to the environmental sensitivities of its legendary mayor, Richard M. Daley. In fact, Daley was one of the early major political players in the brownfield arena, starting with the Chicago Brownfields Initiative that he launched in 1993 after telling a congressional subcommittee that the city needed to recycle its abandoned properties and bring jobs to its inner core.

The original initiative has grown and blossomed into a thriving brownfields program that’s still counting its success stories. “Chicago has created the most aggressive program in the nation to transform brownfields into new industrial facilities, green spaces, affordable housing and technological and manufacturing centers,” Daley said in a speech to the Environment and Energy Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2005. “Our Brownfields Initiative has helped the city increase its tax base by more than $1 million annually, and create and retain more than 3,000 jobs.” ...

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