&gt; The cost of cleanup typically falls upon the person who builds there next.<p>Yes and that cause issue of abandoned sites, if the desirability of the site is lower than the price of cleaning up. Worse, there is not necessarily negative consequences that would push the market to avoid such situation. For heavily polluted sites like gas station, chemical plant, ... the owner of the land has generally made a profit, so disposable land is a viable business model. Not even counting that after enough years, the site could <i>look</i> clean enough to be resold.<p>At some point, it was discussed in Europe to impose a viable (i.e. funded upfront) reconversion plan for land used for stuff like gas station or landfill. The trigger in this case was some incident about some block of flat built on some forgotten nastiness by an unscrupulous builder. Not quite sure if anything actually happened.