What makes a place great? Balance.  Completeness.  Vibrancy.  Sustainable.  These are some words that might come to mind. 

Actually achieving the meaning of these words is an ongoing challenge for Canadian cities and communities as we move into the next decade.    Tension over the best way to achieve “growth”, and when, where, and how this should take place, remains.  Competing interests, visions, and goals can stop things before they start. 

The role that brownfields play may seem only one small part of the overall picture, but they exemplify the type of cross-cutting issue that necessarily involve collaboration, communication, and understanding between many different stakeholders.  There is agreement that transforming these sites is the key to a stronger local economy and a cleaner environment.  Now, new green remediation strategies give us the tools, and new sources of green funding and markets developing around sustainability make it feasible.  Governments, businesses, and communities working together can make it happen, but everyone needs to focus on “the prize” – communities that are restorative, attractive, and make a genuine contribution to the high quality of life enjoyed in Canadian cities. 

So in 2010, the theme of the 11^th annual Canadian Brownfields conference is “Making Great Places”, which we hope underscores this point – that we need to keep the end goal in sight, of transforming the empty and abandoned spaces of yesterday into the truly great places of tomorrow.

Click here to go to all the information from the 2009 conference, including presentations, speakers, delegates, and brownie awards winners.