Urban Wastelands Research Articles

What a waste?

Aim. The aim of the paper is to reflect on role of urban wastelands in context of legal and social construction of urban public spaces. This reflexion is based on analysis of what ecological values are connected with urban wastelands and how those values manifested during pandemic.
 Methods. Paper is based on observatory research put in the context of theoretical reflection on urban research, especially applying to ecology and urban management.
 Results. Spontaneous social animation of urban wastelands related to restrictions placed upon using green areas by Polish government in order to stop the spread of COVID-19 in April 2020 revealed potential of such places to trace regulations introduced in public spaces resulting in transfer of some social practices to less ordered and supervised areas.
 Conclusions. Nowadays urban wastelands gained appreciation as areas of specific high biodiversity and ecological value. However they can also be useful as a measure of social practices excluded from planned and highly organised urban places. They can be used to trace them and rethink legal and social circumstances that led to that exclusion.

Ruins of the smart city: a visual intervention

The visual imaginary of the future city is increasingly dichotomized between visions of hyper-technological digital urbanism and the city in a state of ruin, without people, overtaken by nature. These alternating imaginaries key into concerns over urban futures, as questions of sustainability and rising inequality come to bear on urban life. Such binary imaginaries produce volumes of visual material, lauding and critiquing philosophies of newness, endless progress and the city without decline. This article uses an inventive visual methodology to ask how these imaginaries become situated in the everyday ecologies of living. This methodology focuses on several so-called ‘brownfield’ sites in Salford, UK, and the ‘smart’ Oxford Road Corridor in neighbouring Manchester, to playfully and visually map the entanglement of digital urban ecologies through the themes of wilderness, play and compost. These three themes relate to the pleasure of urban wilderness described by Rose Macaulay, reflecting on London’s wild ruins after the Second World War; the playful contrast between smart urbanism and urban wastelands, understood through interdisciplinary visual methods; and Haraway’s notion of compost as the fertile ground of collaboration that marks a material–semiotic entanglement between place, people and nature. The authors investigate how these frameworks reflect the diversity of urban ecology (animals, plants and humans) and might provide an alternative vision of how the city could be, a vision built from how the city currently is.

Urban wastelands: On the frontline between air pollution sources and residential areas

In urban areas, particulate matter (PM) represents an increasing threat to human health. The ability of plants in parks and along roads in cities to accumulate PM has already been demonstrated, but nothing is known about the effect of wasteland vegetation on air quality, despite a significant proportion of greenery in polluted areas being on wastelands. The aim of this study was to document the accumulation of PM and trace elements (TE) by wasteland species (Robinia pseudoacacia L., Populus × canescens (Aiton) Sm., Acer negundo L., Solidago gigantea (Aiton) and Poaceae) growing on Central European urban wastelands with differing levels of air pollution. On average, the largest amounts of PM accumulated on the foliage of R. pseudoacacia and S. gigantea, and the smallest amounts accumulated on P. × canescens leaves. However, accumulation of PM depended more on the distance from the emission source than on species selection, and was higher on the polluted wasteland where the plants' gas exchange was the lowest. The results also suggest that in order to effectively accumulate PM from the air, it is critical to have the correct configuration of plants, with the wasteland vegetation having a layered structure and layers differing in PM retention, as shown in this study using the examples of R. pseudoacacia (a tall tree with low PM retention) and S. gigantea (below-tree vegetation with high PM retention). P. × canescens accumulated the highest concentrations of Cd and Zn, S. gigantea accumulated the highest concentration of Cu, and Poaceae accumulated the highest concentrations of Cr and Ni. These findings have implications for urban vegetation management in areas where there is no organised greenery, and offer proof that vegetation in wasteland areas should be maintained since it is an excellent tool for reducing concentrations of PM at its place of origin.

Impacts of metallic trace elements on an earthworm community in an urban wasteland: Emphasis on the bioaccumulation and genetic characteristics in Lumbricus castaneus

Metallic trace elements (MTEs) soil pollution has become a worldwide concern, particularly regarding its impact on earthworms. Earthworms, which constitute the dominant taxon of soil macrofauna in temperate regions and are crucial ecosystem engineers, are in direct contact with MTEs. The impacts of MTE exposure on earthworms, however, vary by species, with some able to cope with high levels of contamination. We combined different approaches to study the effects of MTEs at different levels of biological organisation of an earthworm community, in a contaminated urban wasteland. Our work is based on field collection of soil and earthworm samples, with a total of 891 adult earthworms from 8 species collected, over 87 quadrats across the study plot. We found that MTE concentrations are highly structured at the plot scale and that some elements, such as Pb, Zn, and Cu, are highly correlated. Comparing species assemblage to MTE concentrations, we found that the juvenile and adult abundances, and community composition, were significantly affected by pollution. Along the pollution gradient, as species richness decreased, Lumbricus castaneus became more dominant. We thus investigated the physiological response of this species to a set of specific elements (Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cd) and studied the impacts of MTE concentrations at the plot scale on its population genetic. These analyses revealed that L. castaneus is able to bioaccumulate high quantities of Cd and Zn, but not of Cu and Pb. The population genetic analysis, based on the genotyping of 175 individuals using 8 microsatellite markers, provided no evidence of the role of the heterogeneity in MTE concentrations as a barrier to gene flow. The multidisciplinary approach we used enabled us to reveal the comparatively high tolerance of L. castaneus to MTE concentrations, suggesting that this is a promising model to study the molecular bases of MTE tolerance.

“Spaces of Contemporary Horror: Poverty and Social Exclusion as 21st Century Spectres”

This research explores the connections between the recent economic crisis and the contemporary horror film. To this end, I begin with a theoretical examination of the symbolic function of two key motifs (the ghost and the house), and the possibilities of their use to reinforce or subvert the mechanisms of the neoliberal cultural framework. Taking the horror genre as a privileged space for reading the unacknowledged tensions of our society, I consider the filmic use of domestic spaces, the suburbs, and the urban wastelands that the crisis has left in its wake. Against a context that cultivates fear based on the idea of social exclusion—poverty as the ultimate mechanism of horror—I put forward the possibility that the horror genre adopts explicitly ethical stances through a vindication of the meeting point between Deleuze’s and Lévinas’ respective theories of the cinematic face.

Nature Park Amager – examining the transition from urban wasteland to a rewilded ecotourism destination

ABSTRACTUrban ecotourism and urban rewilding may form a sustainable transition path for both tourism and urban wilderness. In an explorative case study, we analyse this option by reconstructing the history of an extensive urban wasteland formerly used as military shooting range and dumpsite and converted to a Nature Park in 2015. The transformation of this urban wasteland has a long history which is shaped by changes in society, technologies, and consequently in ecologies during different periods reflecting prevailing paradigms of nature perceptions over time. We seek to provide a theoretical frame using the social-ecological-technological systems (SETs) framework and transition theory to describe the transformations of the site from its pre-wasteland stage to rewilding and recreation and lately niche development of urban ecotourism. Results reveal that Nature Park Amager is an excellent case illustrating the transformation of an urban wasteland into a nature park providing recreational experiences, interpretative facilities, and guided ecotourism tours for tourists.

Wastelands: their attractiveness and importance for preserving the diversity of wild bees in urban areas

Urban wastelands are important substitute habitats for many insect species, but their value for the protection of wild bees is still poorly studied. We assessed species richness, abundance, and the diversity of wild bees in wastelands that differed in area (2–35 ha), stage of ecological succession, location (suburbs or closer to the city centre), and history of land use. In the investigated plots, we recorded 42% of all bee species reported from Poland. The attractiveness of wastelands was positively correlated with the coverage of blooming herbs, coverage of shrubs and low trees, and the area of the wasteland. An increase in isolation of the habitat patches, the percentage contribution of alien species, annuals, and low grasses (< 25 cm) negatively affected the diversity of Apiformes. Considering the history of land use, we found that the bees were most attracted to wastelands resulting from extractive industry (sand and clay pits), and grassy habitats located in the suburbs, e.g. at sites grazed earlier by sheep. Wastelands in areas directly influenced by the chemical industry were the least attractive to bees. Analyses of quantitative and qualitative similarity of bees in various habitat types showed that three habitat types were the most similar to grasslands in the suburbs (the least disturbed habitats): degraded grasslands located closer to the city centre, extraction pits, and old fields. The presented results indicate that urban wastelands, including some post-industrial sites, can be important secondary habitats for wild bees. Thus, proper management of urban natural resources should cover both the formally managed areas and the so-called unproductive spaces, which have been undervalued so far.

EIGHT RADIOACTIVE TABLEAUX (WITH VENUS AND ADONIS)

6 4 Y E I G H T R A D I O A C T I V E T A B L E A U X ( W I T H V E N U S A N D A D O N I S ) J U S T I N Q U I N N There are no clouds. Thunder out of nowhere. The boar herd at a gallop through the woods. Haunch to haunch twisting through the brush and weeds like shoals through seas, like starlings through the air. A little fazed by people, they steer clear of Sunday trippers, seeking out deep shades – the forest still uncut by back-hoe spades. Like shy actors in the tabloids’ glare. * Fig. 2. There are few trees across the plain, but undergrowth is tall and old and thick. Small creatures weave through it, the larger trick the hunt by holding still where they have lain. He’s come here to a halt, hot on the spoor. Eye-glint in the brush. Flecked and ruddied flank behind brown leaves. He has just readied his stance. He has just raised the point of his spear. * Irradiated flesh. They love the ground. Their snouts sift through its microscopic germs, searching for tubers, roots, bulbs and earthworms. They love the acorns and the nuts strewn round. Rainstorms turning the floor to splash and spill. Or days-long drizzle seeping slowly down 6 5 R into the earth. Or snowfall by the ton. From clouds that drifted here from Chernobyl. * He misses and the tusk unzips his thigh. An inch or two over, he would have killed her. The ground and trees are suddenly out of kilter. Caught in their sickening twist, he knows he’ll die. Boar: as though its stench, rank and fierce, is pressing into him and leaves no room for even breath. All of the forest’s gloom come to a point in its blunt, bristling force. * It looks like urban wasteland anywhere: the sunlight flooding through the damaged ceilings; where there were cars and people, now there’s silence; living rooms and shop floors are open air. But this is all fenced o√. A military post, well-sta√ed, stands at the entrance to the Zone. For all the books and studies, it’s not known whether they guard the future or the past. * Now his lover is arriving, first of all the others. His eyes are turning dim. The life is suddenly rushing out of him, – flustered, detailed – surging through the forest into the sky. A cataclysmic moan is coming from her body like a wave that wants to seize him from the new-made grave. (She is a god, whatever that might mean.) * The catfish in the cooling pond have grown to monstrous lengths as they’ve no predators. The boars graze brazenly – not even tours can faze them in the 30 Kilometer Zone. 6 6 Y Safety procedures are more finely grained across the world, signed o√ by ministers. Fig. 7. There are yellow canisters bricked up 500 meters in the ground. * She is raising her arms. She is begging the very ground to break itself in two. She is screaming at the other gods: undo this death. Undo this death. She is wrecking and ripping up the oak, the pine and olive. Now she’s staring at the lichen and the moss. Now she’s staring at the aphids and the mice. She is wondering why any of these are alive. ...

The right to wild. Green urban wasteland in the context of urban planning

Abstract In the authors’ view, the existing urban planning system is not favourable to the temporality and variability of urban wastelands, which complement traditional urban greenery through a range of functions such as; gardens, meeting spaces, places to walk the dog etc. Consequently, the aim of the paper is to investigate functions and possible scenarios for the development of urban wastelands in Poland. The methods used in the research include a comparative assessment of wasteland case studies from Warsaw and Tarnów and a comparison of possible development scenarios based on case studies from different cities across Europe. Wastelands were researched to establish their location, their functions, the distance from inhabited areas and the types of other green areas located within a 5 min. isochrone from the surrounding housing area. Case studies of development scenarios were researched to establish their changing functions, the continuity of design and the algorithm of creation. The authors conducted qualitative interviews, mapping, inventories of territorial marks (makeshift benches or other constructions made by users showing the way they ‘own’ the area), investigation of local development plans and literature reviews to gather the data used. The collation of results has led to the creation of a ‘wastelands toolkit’ – a tool dedicated to urban planners and decision makers.

Zaadaptowana przestrzeń publiczna – innowacyjne miejsce rozrywki i integracji

Celem pracy jest zobrazowanie szeregu możliwości tworzenia lub ożywienia przestrzeni miejskich w celu budowania tożsamości i wizerunku miasta, ale także w celu scalenia fragmentów i wykorzystania potencjału miejskich nieużytków. Istotny jest również aspekt potencjału samych użytkowników przestrzeni – jako inicjatorów, organizatorów i uczestników procesu tworzenia przestrzeni publicznej. W niniejszej pracy, autorka koncentruje uwagę na znaczeniu alternatywnych sposobów adaptacji miejsca oraz tworzenia relacji przestrzennych i społecznych. Cele działań projektowych powinny bowiem wynikać z potrzeb i preferencji różnych grup mieszkańców i wykorzystywać realne zasoby przestrzenne. W artykule poruszono kwestie aktywizowania przestrzeni i mieszkańców poprzez działania architektoniczne, działania kulturalne i akcje partycypacyjne. Celem było ukazanie siły oddziaływania i korzyści płynących z oddolnych inicjatyw społecznych, tymczasowych interwencji przestrzennych oraz działań proekologicznych, jako skutecznych metod odnowy krajobrazu miejskiego w krótkim czasie i po niskich kosztach.

Wildness and Windsor: Di Brandt’s “Zone: &lt;le Détroit&gt;,” Environmental Praxis, and Urban Nature

Should we agree the purple loosestrife along the river is beautiful and benign, intending only to shine? Choking out even the bulrushes, pharaoh of weeds. – Di Brandt, “Horizon on Fire” (11–14) Purple Loosestrife is a wetland plant, native to Europe and Asia, but in North America it is considered one of the most problematic invasive species. It grows quickly, forming a thick stand in disturbed areas, choking out native species with a dense mat of roots while providing little food value for native species. Furthermore, a single plant can produce over one million seeds each year, making it difficult to root out. Yet the plant also produces numerous purple flowers along its stems, so that Di Brandt proclaims the plant beautiful and benign even as it chokes out native bulrushes. The lines above epitomize the way Brandt sees a vitality in the natural world that consistently interrupts certain human activities while calling viewers to reflect on their beauty and ongoing resistance to human control. The poem is set in an apocalyptic urban future marked by smokestacks, concrete, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or DDT, and dead fish, yet nature finds ways to re-assert itself in weeds, grasshoppers, and birds. The poem’s speaker wants to celebrate this resistance yet also mourns the inherent destruction of industrial capitalism which has created urban wastelands.

Field evaluation of cultural cycles for improved cadmium and zinc phytoextraction with Noccaea caerulescens

Adequate cultural cycles for phytoextraction with Noccaea caerulescens have never been investigated, whereas they directly influence biomass production. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the season of establishment, the seeding strategy (sowing vs transplantation) and the length of the growing season on biomass production and metal accumulation of N. caerulescens. A field trial was conducted on an urban wasteland contaminated with trace metals. Two populations with contrasted natural life cycles, one Cd-accumulating metallicolous (Ganges, GAN) and one non-metallicolous from Luxemburg (LUX), were compared in 6 cultural cycles. Direct sowing in the fall yielded satisfying metal uptake (260 g Cd ha−1 with GAN and 25 kg Zn ha−1 with LUX), though lower than those obtained with transplantation (320 g Cd ha−1 with GAN and 45 kg Zn ha−1 with LUX) due to less biomass production (1.6 vs 3.2 t ha−1). Extending the growing period from 6 to 12 months was mostly beneficial for biennial LUX plants (with 3 times higher Zn uptake), than for annual GAN plants (with 1.5 times higher Cd uptake). The natural variation in life cycles – annual or biennial – of N. caerulescens should be taken into account when selecting cultivars for phytoextraction.

Phytoextraction of Cd and Zn with Noccaea caerulescens for urban soil remediation: influence of nitrogen fertilization and planting density

Phytoextraction field trials with Noccaea caerulescens were conducted in Brussels (Belgium) to investigate the benefits of nitrogen fertilization and planting density on phytoextraction efficiency. Both metallicolous (Ganges) and non-metallicolous (NMET, Luxembourg) populations were grown for 6 months in an urban wasteland and in a vegetable garden contaminated with trace metals at two planting densities (50 and 100 plants·m−2, D50 and D100), with and without mineral nitrogen fertilizers. Trials showed that N. caerulescens responded positively to nitrogen fertilization through increased biomass production. However due to lower concentrations in Cd and Zn in fertilized plants, the total metal uptake was differently impacted by fertilization: on one site metal uptake was enhanced while on the other it was reduced. Moreover fertilization had collateral effects as enhancing fungal pathogen development. The effect of planting density of N. caerulescens assessed in this work for the first time highlighted a clear competition between individuals at higher density – proved by lower individual biomass – but the highest metal uptake was nevertheless achieved at the highest density of 100 plants·m−2 because of higher total biomass. Six months after harvest soil exchangeable concentrations were reduced by about 25% for Cd with Ganges population and by 9% for Zn with the NMET population on the best treatment (N fertilized and D100). The feasibility of using N. caerulescens for bioavailable contaminant stripping of moderately contaminated soils was confirmed for Cd and to a lesser extent for Zn.

Corrigendum

Creighton Connolly (2017) Landscape political ecologies of urban ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town, Malaysia. cultural geographies 24(3): 421–439. DOI: 10.1177/1474474016684128. The journal would like to make the following correction: Endnotes 45-69 should be revised as follows: 45. Geografia, George Town Land Use and Population Survey. 46. Following Malaysian independence in 1957, the new Malay government renamed all streets in Malaysia’s colonial enclaves such as George Town. However, many of the old names are still commonly used by residents, hence my reference to both. 47. This attitude on behalf of government officials in Malaysia has also been documented by other scholars, see K.Mulligan, S.J.Elliott and C.Shuster-Wallace, ‘The Place of Health and the Health of Place: Dengue Fever and Urban Governance in Putrajaya, Malaysia’, Health &amp; Place, 18, 2012, pp. 613–20. 48. On a more recent visit to George Town in August, 2016, EYS still had hundreds of swiftlets flying in and out, nearly 3 years after the deadline for closure of swiftlet farms inside the WHS. Given the political and economic influence of the EYS company, it is conceivable that they will be able to continue operating the swiftlet farm for the foreseeable future. 49. According to George Town’s Special Area Plan (2011), category II buildings are those ‘of special interest that warrants every effort being made to preserve them’. See State Government of Penang (SGP), Draft Special Area Plan, George Town: Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca (Penang: SGP, 2010). 50. This incident was (allegedly) triggered by the export of fake birds’ nests with dangerous nitrite levels to China from Malaysia, and resulted in the near collapse of the swiftlet farming industry, given that China has always been the primary market for EBNs. This episode demonstrated how the physical landscape in one place can be dramatically influenced by political-economic changes elsewhere. See Connolly, ‘A Landscape Political Ecology of ‘Swiftlet Farming’ in Malaysian Cities’, chapter 4; C.Thorburn, ‘The Edible Birds’ Nest Boom in Indonesia and South-East Asia’, Food, Culture and Society, 17, 2014, 535–53. 51. MBPP (Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang), ‘Laporan Industri Dan Premis Burung Walit Di Dalam Tapak Warisan Dunia George Town’ (George Town, Penang, Jabatan Warisan, 2013), np. 52. George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), Draft Guidelines for Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) World Heritage Cities of Melaka and George Town (Penang, 2010), pp. 76–7, &lt; www.gtwhi.com.my/index.php/regulate/2015-01-21-04-01-01/2015-01-21-04-18-59 &gt; 53. Note, this excludes Penang and Malacca, where heritage was the largest concern, due to the UNESCO World Heritage listing in both cities. 54. On an earlier visit to Taiping, I came across a hotel which operated a swiftlet house on the top story, while the bottom three stories were rented out to human occupants (!) 55. J.Lepawsky and R.C.Jubilado, ‘Globalizing Kuala Lumpur and Rationalizing the Street’, In S.G.Yeoh (ed.), The Other Kuala Lumpur (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 22–37. 56. T.K.Ho, ‘Swiftlet Rearing in Town a Health Threat’, The Star, 6 February 2009, p. N49. 57. Quoted in anonymous, ‘Chow: Swiftlet farms being phased out’, The Star, 14 April 2013, n.p. 58. Mulligan et al., ‘The Place of Health and the Health of Place’. 59. Duckett-Wilkinson, correspondence, 15 December 2010. 60. Duckett-Wilkinson, correspondence, 5 May 2011. 61. Indeed, Duckett-Wilkinson has spoken to several local doctors in George Town about this issue, who have verbally confirmed that cases of lung disease are ‘disproportionate’ in Georgetown (Duckett-Wilkinson, interview, 22 October 2013). 62. Duckett-Wilkinson, Open Letter, 20 June 2010; citing M.L.DeWitt, ‘cryptococcus’, &lt; http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/215354-overview &gt; 63. Anonymous, ‘A health hazard not many are aware of’, New Straits Times, 9 September 2009, n.p., print. 64. In: R.Nathan, ‘“More Seminars” Plan for Bird’s Nest Farmers’ The Star, 6 June 2003, p. 13. 65. See Mulligan et al., ‘The Place of Health and the Health of Place’; T.Bunnell, ‘Re-Viewing the Entrapment Controversy: Megaprojection, (Mis)Representation and Postcolonial Performance’, GeoJournal, 59, 2004, pp. 297–305. 66. Carpiano, ‘Come Take a Walk with Me’. 67. M.Gandy, ‘Marginalia: Aesthetics, Ecology and Urban Wastelands’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103(6), 2013, pp. 1301–16; A.Loftus, ‘Working the Socio-Natural Relations of the Urban Waterscape in South Africa’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(1), 2007, pp. 41–59; E.Swyngedouw, ‘The City as a Hybrid – On Nature, Society and Cyborg Urbanization’, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 7(2), 1996, pp. 65–80. 68. See, for example, Mitchell, The Lie of the Land; D.Matless, Landscape and Englishness (London: Reaktion Books, 1998). 69. See, for example, P.Y.Hung, Tea Production, Land Use Politics, and Ethnic Minorities: Struggling over Dilemmas on China’s Southwest Frontier (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Neumann, ‘Political Ecology III’; Walker and Fortmann, ‘Whose Landscape?’.

Caractérisation de la végétation des friches situées au sein d’un réseau d’infrastructures de transport : le cas de la vallée de l’Huveaune – Marseille / Characterisation of the vegetation of urban wastelands situated within transport infrastructure sites : the case of the Huveaune valley – Marseille

Often considered as abandoned sites of no value, colonised by vegetation that is depreciated, disordered and poorly maintained, urban wastelands are today in France the focus of major territorial issues, in particular with regard to the preservation of the biodiversity and the development of Green and Blue Infrastructure. Featuring among the last ‘wild’ natural spaces, but also the last areas in the city that are still available for urban development, they are universally coveted. From the ecological point of view, the biological diversity of these areas in the Mediterranean region remains largely unknown. A study was therefore undertaken on 24 urban wastelands situated within the transport infrastructure sites of the lower Huveaune valley between Marseille and Aubagne, in south-east France, in order to characterise the vegetation of these areas with regard to the taxonomic, morphological and biological aspects. The analysis of the floristic data resulting from vegetation transects shows that these infrastucture wastelands, rich and diversified, are dominated by five herbaceous species of the Poaceae family, in which a few shrub and tree species cohabit. The dominant plant species are characteristic of ruderal, open urban environments, and are accompanied by roadside and field edge plant species that are evidence of the long history of changes of land occupation and use that the valley has been witness to and of recent disturbances to which it has been subjected. The micro-topography related to the transport infrastructure system does not appear to have any influence on the structure and composition of the floristic composition of wasteland sites, except on the frequency of certain biological and morphological traits. The maintenance carried out on the transport infrastructure embankment wastelands may be a factor that explains the differences observed. These visually perceptible differences may also contribute from the aesthetic and affective points of view to the variation of the degree of appreciation by the general public of the plant diversity between the sloping and non-sloping wasteland sites.

The recreational potential for wastelands as well as users’ preferences for wasteland aesthetics. Case study of Warsaw, Poland

Urban wastelands may often be perceived as dysfunctional and unattractive, however they always seem to have environmental and sociological values, which encourage people to act spontaneously in their use. Undeveloped areas are important places in the structure of inhabiting landscape as a substitute for “natural” landscape. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to describe residents’ aesthetical preferences for urban wasteland according to the image (type of scenery) and function of this kind of urban greenery. The survey was carried out on 13 selected case studies of brownfields, neglected greenery and undeveloped areas in Warsaw. The users' aesthetical preferences as well as the behaviour of residents, which have been treated as a neighbourhood greenery, were examined and compared. A basis of the comparison was differences in the image of the visiting landscape, perceived as different types of scenery. The methods used included Visitor Employed Photography and territorial markers and a physical traces inventory. The results show the various recreational uses, thus the great potential of wasteland green areas. It also confirms the growing acceptability of free vegetation aesthetics, while also presenting differences in the choice of a particular scenery by different groups of users.

“Whose Music Was It?”: Unaccountable Art and Uncontainable Sex in Langston Hughes’s “Home” and Eudora Welty’s “June Recital”

“Whose Music Was It?”: Unaccountable Art and Uncontainable Sex in Langston Hughes’s “Home” and Eudora Welty’s “June Recital” Donnie McMahand and Kevin Murphy That classical, blues, and jazz performances become transcendent happenings in the writings of Langston Hughes and Eudora Welty keenly suggests the importance of music in the authors’ lives and literary imaginations. Hughes documented his musical sensibility throughout his career in such poems as “Jazzonia,” “The Weary Blues,” and “Theme for English B” and in the stories “The Blues I’m Playing” and “Home,” both published in the collection The Ways of White Folks. Lenox Avenue in Harlem serves not only as a setting for “The Weary Blues,” but also as an actual site of artistic production, one that marks Hughes’s heyday in the Harlem Renaissance. Welty signals her sensitivity toward musicians and musical performance in her early story “Powerhouse” and in three later stories, “June Recital,” “Music from Spain,” and “The Wanderers” from The Golden Apples cycle. At Welty’s historic home in Jackson, Mississippi, visitors will find her writing desk upstairs at a window overlooking the Music School of Belhaven University, a possible source of inspiration, located just across the street. As places of musical influence, Welty’s Mississippi and Hughes’s New York could hardly contrast each other more, but as much as Jackson differed from Harlem and Hughes’s life from Welty’s, both writers produced pristinely similar concepts in their stories, “Home” and “June Recital” respectively, of nonconforming musicians and the insular communities that repudiate them. Like their imaginary musicians, Welty and Hughes themselves experienced the loss of an artistic opportunity due to the insularity of 1940s America, which largely prohibited interracial contact, especially between black men and white women. Lovers of music and literature can only wonder what might have been had Hughes and Welty followed through on adapting Welty’s novel The Robber Bridegroom into an operetta. In a letter to friend and agent Diarmuid Russell, Welty confided, “If I had my wish, I wouldn’t have anything to do with any libretto, and hope I won’t have to” (qtd. in Marrs 153). While Welty heartily approved of Hughes writing [End Page 43] the libretto, she expressed trepidations about the feasibility of their collaborating in Jackson. Welty biographer Suzanne Marrs points out Welty’s added intent not to expose her mother to any hazard Hughes’s presence in Mississippi might incite. Ever wary of the potential for racialized violence, Welty admitted to Russell that “Mr. Hughes … probably knows better than I the difficulties” (qtd. in Marrs 153). Her assumption qualifies as an unaffected understatement, given Hughes’s lifelong activism against lynching and vigilante justice. Speaking at the Windy City Press Club Banquet in 1957, Hughes presented a clear picture of his childhood fear of lynching, commenting how “headlines in the Negro press used to scare me to death. I grew up in Kansas, and for years I was afraid to go down South, thinking … I might be lynched the minute I got off the train” (“Humor” 354). Not coincidentally, Hughes’s image of a doomed artist-outsider disembarking a train in hostile territory specifically recalls the opening scene of his story “Home.” Recurring, then, in rhetoric and fiction, Hughes’s hyperbole of instant death clearly attests to the writer’s visceral reaction to the reality of race killing. The idea of the outsider’s emergence within a rural, clannish community dominates both “Home” and “June Recital,” as does the modernist clash between cosmopolitan artists and small-town residents. As outsiders, Roy Williams in “Home” and Miss Eckhart in “June Recital” escape Europe’s urban wastelands wrought by the ravages of the First World War. Battling tuberculosis, Roy flees war-torn Berlin to see his mother again in Hopkinsville, Missouri, while Miss Eckhart, a German national, relocates with her mother after the war to Morgana, Mississippi. Roy, a concert violinist, and Miss Eckhart, a devoted piano player, never achieve acceptance within their respective communities; the same proves true for Miss Reese, a native Missourian music teacher who briefly befriends Roy after his return to Hopkinsville. Racially segregated and sexually conservative, Hughes’s Hopkinsville and Welty’s Morgana commonly...

Wykorzystanie nieużytków miejskich jako przestrzeni międzygatunkowych – analiza efektów wprowadzenia

Tereny nieużytków miejskich powstają najczęściej w dwojaki sposób. Mogą one stanowić tereny użytkowane ekstensywnie o różnorakiej etymologii lub, co istotniejsze, rodzaj artefaktów pozostałych po wymarłej w danym miejscu funkcji. Tereny te, jako powstające na granicy pomiędzy przestrzeniami o różnorakim przeznaczeniu, stanowią w głównej mierze o jakości lub bylejakości linii przejścia pomiędzy tym, co w mieście planowane, a pozostałymi terenami rozwijającymi się niejako obok, bez wyraźnego planu. Dodatkowo brak aranżacji tych miejsc powoduje podział miasta na szereg niespójnych fragmentów – zarówno pod względem funkcjonalnym, kompozycyjnym jak i estetycznym. Z tego powodu celem podjętych badań była analiza lokalizacyjna terenów mogących w przyszłości służyć uspójnieniu miejskich terenów pozostających bez wyraźnego zagospodarowania i ich czasowej adaptacji na cele rekreacyjne, integracyjne czy edukacyjne, służące docelowo mieszkańcom miast zarówno ludzkim, jak i zwierzęcym. Wprowadzenie przestrzeni międzygatunkowych jako konkretnego rozwiązania, sposobu przekształcania problematycznych przestrzeni miejskich, ma wpływ na zmianę sposobu funkcjonowania miasta zarówno jako organizmu, ekosystemu, jak i struktury urbanistycznej. Takie kształtowanie powoduje kumulowanie pozytywnych cech przekształceń miasta – wzrostu jakości zielonych przestrzeni rekreacyjnych, terenów sportowych, poprawę bezpieczeństwa, odtwarzanie flory i fauny miejskiej i wiele innych.

Subterranean Mexican Blues: Guillermo Fadanelli and the Genesis of Trash Literature

This article examines the notion of literatura basura (trash literature) via the work of Mexican author Guillermo Fadanelli: literary renegade and creator of the trash literature movement. Fadanelli’s trash literature project, which he developed alongside the Moho project in the late 1980s, involved a hypothetical relinquishment of the ideas of literary longevity, academicization, and good literary manners. Fadanelli has described his invention of the term as “la abierta carcajada del condenado a muerte.” This irreverence, however, belies a more sobering message: trash is the consummate affliction of our times; it clogs our landfills and our airwaves, failing to nourish our minds or our bodies; like death, it is forced underground, confined to the peripheries of our ever-expanding societies. By virtue of its ubiquity, however, it tells us a great deal about the sensibilities of postmodern culture. This article examines the (anti)ideological origins of Fadanelli’s trash literature project and situates it within the dynamic counter-culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, mapping the ways in which it intersects with (and departs from) other literary, cinematic and artistic movements of its time. From this analysis, Mexico City—a site of unparalleled sprawl and saturation—emerges as an apt symbol of the trash paradox: the hopelessness of the urban wasteland, I suggest, contains both the grim confidence of the death drive and the possibility, however unexpected, of complete renewal.

Grasshopper diversity of urban wastelands is primarily boosted by habitat factors

Abstract Urban wastelands are considered to be valuable habitats for biodiversity conservation, but empirical evidence for several poorly investigated taxa such as grasshoppers is still pending – although urgently required for reasonable habitat management and urban planning. For the first time, we analysed grasshopper diversity of urban wastelands at different diversity levels, namely, alpha and functional diversity. In 2014, we selected 24 urban wastelands in the city of Berlin (Germany). We analysed the relationships between local and landscape factors and different measurements of diversity (species richness, Simpson diversity, functional dispersion, functional evenness and functional divergence). We sampled 21 species, which represented about 45% of the entire grasshopper fauna of Berlin and numerous species of conservation interest were present at the investigated sites. Grasshopper diversity was best explained by local factors, with herb cover having a positive effect on alpha and functional diversity. Human impact and accessibility increased the conservation value of urban wasteland sites. Late successional stages are very important for a high grasshopper diversity in general but early stages are mandatory to promote species of conservation concern. Urban wastelands can be turned into most promising transition zones for city‐dwellers that fulfil the needs of conservationists and specialised species at the same time. To achieve this goal we recommend minimum requirements for successful habitat management.