Customer Reviews

Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America

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This book has a marvelous collection of aerial photographs of sprawling urban areas, but not much else. The use of GIS (geographic information systems) to buttress the author's diffuse and confusing argument is intriguing, but the statistical maps seem to be designed more for visual impact than for conveying significant information. The text of the book is filled with needlessly arcane terminology and logic, and comes to no real conclusions. This is a book by a person who is fascinated by contemporary urban dynamics of land use, but who has no ideas about it that are not purely aesthetic. That is, he finds the process of wasteful consumption of land fascinating and awe inspiriring...beyond that, zilch.

The photographs are very impressive, beautiful through the decay, disaster, indeed the dross surrounding cities. Space wasted by bad design mostly. Yet, there just isn't much in the book besides that. There's nothing like a solution in here, nothing in the problem definition even aside from the examples. Sure, there's wasted space, but moving on from that, what is there here?

Why write a book then design it so it is painful to read? That's the first clue to the detached amorality of the author's premise: you can't beat them, you don't even want to beat them, so join them. Consumerism, the religion of the 20th and 21st centuries, is a given so I don't need to mention it, in fact, I'm going to celebrate it. And since I have a prestigious spot on the faculty of a prestigious institution of higher learning and I take great pictures, my bankrupt theories will have weight.

This book is a good survey of the real world but buy it for the pictures, buy it for a look into the mindset of current corporatist acceptance, buy it for examples of unchecked capitalism's disrespect of simple human and aesthetic dignity. Don't buy it for background on how it came to be.

NB: the "geospatially derived maps, charts, and graphs" are unreadable.

This book is a natural extension of the direction Alan Berger took in his first book Reclaiming the American West. While in his first book he examined the "leftover" space, of human industrial development in the American West in his new book he examines the range of wasted spaces which are created by current urban development patterns. Although specifically about the American urban landscape, his work can be at least loosely applied anywhere where sprawl or horizontal urbanity has become the norm. A key aim of his book is to go beyond the partisan debate of pro-or anti sprawl activists. Instead, Berger sets out to initiate a conversation and to develop a vocabulary through which this phenomenon of "inevitable" horizontal development can be understood and critiqued. However, this is arguably one weakness of the book. Although he develops a wonderful analysis of the phenomenon, his acceptance of it's inevitably, especially in the face of the efforts of many to change the game, can come off as defeatist. Yet, his focus on the liminal nature of the typologies he outlines does open up many fascinating areas of discussion. For inspiration he draws on everything from William Gibson's Neuromancer to Lars Lerups' concept of Stim & Dross. Ultimately, his approach is hopeful though. He concludes that because of the large scale nature of the problem, any solution must draw on abilities and knowledge of all the design disciplines from landscape architecture to urban planning. Berger suggests a paradigm shift, asking "designers to consider working in the margins rather than at the center."

DROSSCAPE: WASTING LAND IN URBAN AMERICA is a top pick not just for architects and building designers, but for any homeowners or buyer who would understand waste landscapes and how they are handled. Landscape architects must learn to accommodate them - and homeowners need to learn about them. DROSSCAPE is for both, offering a radical new method of thinking about landscape and its problems. Ten cities are analyzed through aerial photography, maps and charts with an eye to surveying human needs, design challenges, and social issues alike.

Diane C. Donovan

California Bookwatch

If Dolores Hayden's recent exploration of suburban geography in "A Field Guide to Sprawl" defined a genre of 'naming and photographing' the oddness of the emerging American hinterland of strip malls, powercenters and waste space, Drosscape is its first major, major contribution. This thing is stunning.

It's a daunting, harrowing, yet strangely compelling photographic helicopter ride through the vast industrial and suburban backyards of the American landscape. Packed with informative, beautifully conceived graphs that collate reams of data, this book will fascinate those who fiercely love our brash and imperfect cities, and who retain hope for their ecological and transformational redemption in the coming century.