Design
The Moral Baggage of 'Wastelands'
“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 rubble, expanses of garbage, polluted lakes, and stinky streams.