ABSTRACT
As global restructuring continues, what gets left behind are deindustrialized wastelands: brownfields, unpurposed interstitial spaces, demographic contraction, detritus/pollution/contamination, and by-passed places. In his manifesto-like book Drosscape, Alan Berger suggests these wasted places accumulate as once-thriving industrial areas begin to hollow out with the evolution of manufacturing processes and the changing locations of production. In some instances “dross” is the result of companies and institutions that leave behind their obsolete facilities; or perhaps they undertook cost-cutting/profit-maximization by abandoning the country, their sites, and employees for less expensive labor and resources overseas. At other times, dross can be caused by leapfrogged interstitial space as a result of horizontal urbanization and sprawl. The scale of these wastelands is immense, becoming a norm in some regions by-passed by the global or local economy – or conversely as a result of poor physical planning oversight. They can be found both within the inner-core of deindustrializing cities and on the periphery of sprawling megapolitan areas. One need think only of the vast expanses of decline in rustbelt places like Detroit, Philadelphia, or Cleveland to understand what Berger is onto here (not to mention the industrial wastelands of Europe, or the post-colonial traces of industry in the global south). Photographs of abandoned military facilities and decaying factories in the book help us to understand the huge scale and “common” condition of these wastelands we pass on an everyday basis – but rarely see.
