“An act of transforming the wasteland is seen as a redemptive activity that’s going to save the individual, the society, and the nation.”

This post is part of a CityLab series on wastelands, and what we squander, discard, and fritter away. 

The term “wasteland” recalls a variety of scenes. To some, it evokes the graffiti-tagged walls of neighborhoods in decline—“blighted” areas that are ripe for urban renewal projects. Others see images of defunct infrastructure. Wastelands can also be quite literal dumping grounds: hills of rubbleexpanses of garbagepolluted lakes, and stinky streams.

But the assumptions underlying perceptions of these spaces and how we deal with them today actually go way back—to the Bible. In her book Wastelands: A HistoryVittoria Di Palma, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture, traces the roots of the concept. The highlights of her conversation with CityLab are below:

A swamp wasteland drained and divided into plots for farming, depicted in “A Map of the Great Levell Drayned” by William Dugdale from the book The History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes (London: 1662).
A swamp wasteland drained and divided into plots for farming, depicted in “A Map of the Great Levell Drayned” by William Dugdale from the book The History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes (London: 1662). © Vittoria Di Palma/The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles

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So, what is a wasteland?

I can tell you, it wasn't what I initially thought.

There are two major traditions that “wasteland” draws from. One is biblical discussions of wilderness. There’s also the early-modern English context, which has to do with different landholding patterns.

What I found through my research was that in the Bible, you had this term “wasteland” apply to a whole variety of sites: sandy sites, rocky sites, barren sites, and sites overgrown with thorns. There wasn't any kind of consistency. Then, when you look at 17th- and 18th-century English landscapes, “wastelands” were forests, commons, swamps, mountainous regions, and heaths. In every case, there was a huge variety of landscapes that fit into this category. So I struggled with that for while, asking, "what is the unifying characteristic?"

I was looking in the wrong place. These different kinds of landscapes did not have physical characteristics in common. But the thing that united [“wastelands”] was the language that was used to describe them. Their unifying feature was this aversive reaction they inspired. So, the question shifted from "what is a ‘wasteland?’" to "how does a ‘wasteland’ make us feel?" [The term] was really about a subjective reaction rather than an objective categorization.

How are wastelands different today?

What has changed is that different kinds of landscapes are now identified as “wastelands.” A swamp, which was an example of a 17th-century “wasteland,” is now—for us—a wetland with its own unique ecosystem of creatures. It's something we try to preserve, rather than eradicate. Right now, one of the most common types of sites identified as “wastelands” are post-industrial sites that have been either abandoned or contaminated. It's not just the blighted [urban] landscape, but things like chemical contamination and radiation, which we can't even see.

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Some modern-day efforts to reinvent the so-called “wasted” parts of the city have had very negative effects—intentional and unintentional. Theurban renewal drives of the 20th century, or more recently, adaptive reuse projects like New York’s High Line, are examples. What gives this categorization such broad power?

First, the emptiness and malleability of the term. It can be applied to all kinds of different situations.

The other really critical factor is that the term “wasteland” is laden with this ethical imperative that has its roots in the Bible: an act of transforming the “wasteland” is seen as a redemptive activity that’s going to save the individual, the society, and the nation. This concept channels these fantasies that transformation is not just an economic need, but also moral work.

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