Ambivalent landscapes—wilderness in the urban interstices

Abstract

This paper explores the origins and development of ambivalent responses to particular contemporary urban landscapes in historical ideas about human relationships with nature and wilderness, and suggests that post-modern wilderness may be found in the urban interstices: in woodland, abandoned allotments, river corridors, derelict or brownfield sites and especially areas in which the spontaneous growth of vegetation through natural succession suggests that nature is in control. We propose that these interstitial wilderness landscapes have numerous important functions as well as being rich repositories of meaning with implications both for theorizing nature–human relationships and for urban landscape planning and design.