The “Brownfield-Greenfield” Debate
Since the early 90’s, the process of economic restructuring has left its mark in Central and Eastern Europe. On the one hand, old industries are becoming obsolete, while at the same time countries want to have modern industrial zones prepared for foreign investors. The consequence of these combined forces has often been an unbalanced urban development pattern, where new industrial zones are established on Greenfield sites, while vast areas of Brownfield sites remain unused.

The need for integrated industrial zone (re) development
Many regions in Central Europe suffer from a stagnating economic development. The pressure of the market economy is felt more than ever, now massive re-orientation of production is taking shape. In many cases this means that old economic structures have become obsolete, including (industrial) estates and local labour skills. To cope with this transformation process, an integrated set of development actions is needed. These actions have to be focused in the following areas:

• Regeneration of urban areas, aimed at the creation of job generating economic activities;
• Improvement of accessibility of settlements;
• Balanced industrial site development strategies, which respond to the needs of (foreign) investors.

Support from the European Union
In the coming years, these types of projects will become increasingly important when the countries in Central Europe will have become EU-member states. Programmes under the current Phare framework show that especially in Hungary and the Czech Republic preparations have started to fill project pipelines and to train civil servants at the regional and local level to implement these projects.

For more information, please contact:

Walter Hulsker
T 0031 (0) 10 453 87 74
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