Brownfields do not “only live twice”: The possibilities for heritage preservation and the enlargement of leisure time activities in Brno, the Czech Republic

Abstract

Central Europe is replete with legacy contaminated sites, commonly called "brownfields". The question is what can be done to remediate them and make them again safe and useful to society. This question is addressed in post-socialistic city of Brno, the Czech Republic. Our research assesses public perceptions of such sites that are currently utilized for the leisure time activities. Special attention is paid to public views of heritage preservation as an option for brownfield regeneration. The principal aim of the paper is to measure public support of heritage preservation through the conversion of brownfields to leisure activities and tourism. Data were gathered by means of the questionnaire survey with visitors of four brownfields currently being used for leisure time activities (n=130). It was revealed that the awareness of the visitors of the issue of brownfield regeneration is very low, and that importantly affects the perception of heritage preservation of individual sites. Further, the opinions of the respondents are significantly influenced by the local contexts of individual brownfields (predominantly by the situation and the technical state). However, it might be stated that in locations where the historical state of building has already been repaired, historical heritage is perceived more positively.

Spatial Patterns of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services in Cities of Various Sizes, Morphologies and Economies

“…Their concentration in the inner cities and also urban cores (rather than dispersion in the suburbs) can be explained by: (i) The image effect and prestige of the central locality (Praha, Brno); (ii) the connection to the global communication links (Praha) and regional links (Brno, Ostrava) and (iii) the combination of relatively weakly developed urban core industries (finance, insurance) and a relative decline of historical cores/inner cities as the result of commercial and residential sub-urbanization (Brno, Ostrava). In case of Ostrava (and advertising in Brno) the spatial patterns of companies are also clearly constrained by relatively weak urbanization and localization economies (nevertheless, some effects of localization economies, such as easier access to information and data for IT firms were recorded [14,30]), relatively high concentration of manufacturing firms [95], and industrial brownfields in the inner city [116,117], most of them not revitalized despite their central position [118]. Obviously, the urban contextual factors, such as the position in the urban hierarchy and inherited economic profile may significantly alter the theoretically expected localization patterns of advertising and IT.…”

Re-reuse of regenerated brownfields: Lessons from an Eastern European post-industrial city

“…Such result is important for the context of the Eastern European countries as, due to a lack of financial resources, a plenty of brownfields are regenerated gradually (Kunc et al, 2014a) for a long time depending on the financial situation of the owner, which presupposes significant patience of visitors. The functionality goes first in many cases; however, if functionality meets the aesthetical values, the satisfaction of visitors is higher, as is shown by reuse case studies in Brno, Czech Republic (Navratil et al, 2017). In contrast, in the case of post-socialistic cities "something" is better than the present state (Rall and Haase, 2011).…”

Problems of Transforming Military Training Areas in a Post-Communist Space: Local Community Perceptions and Policy Implications

“… ere are many examples of so-called best or smart practices reporting how human factors as initiators of regeneration of underused sites (e.g., making a good project proposal, gaining a local community sup-port, acquiring of grant titles, etc.) have overcome locational handicaps or have modifi ed the characteristics of suitability of an area or a concrete brownfi eld site according to specifi c project purposes (Frantál et al, 2018, Navrátil et al, 2018.…”