It permits municipalities to offer up to a 10-year tax abatement to reclaim industrial tracts and revive them for commercial or industrial use.

The "Forty Acres" backlot was sold off by Gulf+Western in 1976 and redeveloped in the 1980s into an industrial tract.

Both were planned and developed by the Canadian Northern Railway as middle class suburbs, though both, Leaside in particular, featured large industrial tracts.

But today, Mr. Maier is convinced that that approach has frightened off potential developers and left old industrial tracts like the one here orphaned.

As evidence, they point to thousands of industrial tracts that they say have been shunned by developers because of concerns over legal liability for pollution and contamination.

Throughout his career Moss has worked to revitalize a once defunct industrial tract in Culver City, California.

Can we look to new industrial tracts?

That's still far below what the property would be worth on a square-foot basis as part of an industrial tract, said Robert Cohen, an attorney representing six homeowners.

It contains some industrial tracts, several old factory buildings, many small homes and apartment buildings, and a number of office buildings.

In Los Angeles, a large industrial tract was also promoted by the Central Manufacturing District of Chicago.