Way down in this news release about federal grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is this item:
— The city of Flagstaff will use $200,000 of petroleum grant funds to inventory sites in the Route 66 Central Corridor, perform environmental site assessments, develop a comprehensive redevelopment plan, and conduct community outreach.
A fact sheet on another part of the EPA site elaborates a bit more:
This corridor (Route 66) contains a disproportionate number of brownfields, and is an underserved area with lower wage jobs, a lack of affordable housing, and blight. The residents of two of these neighborhoods are among the most elderly in the city, and earn about half the median income of the city as a whole. A third area is entirely commercial/industrial with about 75 properties, 30 of which are blighted and either abandoned or underutilized. When brownfields are revitalized, they will be used for greenspace or retail services. Brownfields redevelopment will help preserve a sustainable community, provide new jobs for the city's minority and disadvantaged citizens, and create affordable housing.
There's a similar effort going on with abandoned gas stations in the Arizona Route 66 towns of Winslow and Holbrook.