CHICAGO WASTE LANDS - REFUSE DISPOSAL AND URBAN-GROWTH, 1840-1990

Studies of urban growth have focused attention on the development of infrastructures and the built environment. The constrution of cities, however, often rests upon a less-than-ideal physical foundation. Massive alteration of a city's site has become a central feature of urban development, and frequently urban refuse provided the material for reclaiming useless property. Chicago provides an ideal setting in which to examine the importance of human manipulations of natural topography in shaping a city's form. To create a dry base for the city on what was an inhospitable marsh, Chicago used massive amounts of urban refuse to raise vast areas. As Chicago grew, refuse served to refill quarries and clay pits in the urban fringe and thereby rejuvenate them as useable real estate. The Chicago experience reflects a continuing process of municipal efforts to displace nuisances to the urban fringe while attempting to control the undesirable effects of municipal wastes and in doing so reconfiguring the topography of the city. © 1994 Academic Press Limited.