Abandoned Environments: Producing New Systems of Value Through Urban Exploration

Contemporary urban landscapes throughout the world have been dramatically transformed by the ebbs and tides of cultural and economic globalization. Loss of industries, economic reform, new directions in urban planning, and growing and shrinking immigrant diasporas, among other factors, have created both new urban forms and lacunae in the modern cities. And in the wake of these shifts, every urban enclave now has areas not generally considered intentional destinations-areas that may be occasionally visited by development consultants, or happened upon and then hastily exited by a driver who has made a wrong turn. Yet, when no one is looking, small groups of people, who often know each other only by adopted nicknames, intentionally converge in such locations, which are either designated as dangerous or off-limits by their local municipal and state authorities, or are forgotten altogether after decades of decay and disuse, still visible on satellite-generated images, but no longer marked on any mass-produced maps. All of the people present at such gatherings will be dressed in utilitarian and inconspicuous clothing, good for scaling fences, squeezing through small openings, and crawling through waterlogged tunnels. Their backpacks will almost always contain flashlights, gloves, and camera gear, sometimes old maps and asbestos masks, and, occasionally, tool kits including rope ladders and crowbars. They are likely to be of both genders (although the males generally outnumber the females), and they will usually be in their teens, twenties, and thirties, although older explorers are not uncommon. They are likely to run the gamut of socioeconomic classes. They include locals, who usually comprise the first wave of explorers in any “postindustrial” region, often negotiating a different relationship to their local environment than the one constructed in media narratives of “the rust belt” and its down-on-their-luck, abject denizens-the history of the buildings they explore may be entwined with their family history of labor for local industries. These locals are likely to have been affected by the loss of the industry in question. Also among their ranks are affluent professionals, creative or otherwise, who may travel great distances to explore abandonments. An inkling of their diverse motivations is represented in the interview excerpts at the opening of the chapter. One by one they will stealthily vanish into buildings that most would avoid. These people are urban explorers-members of a global urban subculture-who, in one way or another, forge meaningful relationships with the postindustrial detritus left in the path of economic and industrial shifts.