Derelict industrial wastelands

Large cities have the legacy of vast areas of prime urban land occupied by abandoned industrial buildings built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The intense debate over restoration or demolition often disables action. Social historians and certain architects want to preserve these sites as industrial heritage; for others the crumbling or rusting factories are worthless.

1. To raze the factories of our past is like clearing a cemetery or church for its land value. These are temples of labour, site of poetic urban value.

1. Unused land
2. Dereliction of the built environment

1. Uncontrolled industrialization
2. Insufficient local industry planning
3. Increasing proportion of land surface devoted to urbanization

1. Promoting study of industrial archaeology
2. Developing brown field sites

1. Land
2. Dereliction
3. Degradation
4. Abandonment