Why are there so many brownfields in the Northeast U.S?

Question

Why are there so many brownfields in the Northeast U.S?

Answer 1

Chickie is right.  After WW II, the factories were barely updated, even though we were producing the goods that rebuilt Japan and Europe.  They got the new factories, and we didn't invest in our own.  That is one reason.  The next is the phaseout in manufacturing in America--we simply weren't prepared for upgrading our factories, and much of the industry went overseas.  Some of those brownfields have been retrofitted with automation, but not enough to use up all the older capacity.  For instance, Detroit is becoming a ghost town because most of the manufacturing has gone to the southern US, Mexico, and Asia.  Mass. was the textile capital of the US at one point--again, moved to the south and now those are all overseas as well.

Answer 2

The brownfields in my area, Buffalo NY, are mostly the deserted remains of the old steel mills that shut down 25 years ago, or other industrial businesses that went belly up when operations were transferred to the southern US or overseas where it was cheaper to do business.  One of the brownfields has been turned into a wind farm and now has 8 windmills on it, with supposedly more to come.