Do you really know what is under that new house you just bought? How about what lies beneath the neighborhood playground? Was that big box retailer down your street built over a toxic site? Will the warehouse just beyond your backyard be converted into a shopping center, factory, or trucking hub? These are just a few of the worrisome scenarios facing us all as our cities begin a stealth relocation of industrial facilities from the inner city to the urban periphery-- places Alan Berger has coined "drosscapes." Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America is your guide to this vast, hitherto largely ignored field of waste landscapes.

Landscape architects must learn to accommodate these wastelands along with the more traditional challenges of site and construction. This will require a radical reconceptualization of thinking about landscape before potential solutions can be effectively addressed or devised. Ten cites are examined both visually and analytically through the use of aerial photography and geospatially derived maps, charts, and graphs.