Breathing New Life Into City Centers

I was looking around on the internet about urban sprawl and actually found something on urban fill instead. Urban fill is essentially filling in dead or abandoned parts of cities by redeveloping them into mix-use buildings. All of the examples that I came across at least on this site were in Colorado, mostly in Denver and Boulder. They have pictures and descriptions of sites that have recenlty been completed. It looks pretty cool and seems to me to be an ideal way to liven up abondoned and undesirable parts of cities. In a way it also counteracts the phenomina of urban sprawl by encouraging more growth inside the cities instead of outside them. While some people hit the suburbs because they want to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life others leave because many big cities are run down and not taken care of properly. This site discusses the use incentives by local governments to promote the development of vacant and rundown land in urban areas. When the incentives are there for the private builder to take on the project urban fill becomes the best way to improve urban areas and make them a more desirable place to live. Notice the key being incentives for the builder. Once again the theme of an issue is "Incentives Matter"