Edgelands

"Edgeland" redirects here. For the album by Karl Hyde, see Edgeland (album).

Edgelands is a term for the transitional, liminal zone of space created between rural and urban areas as formed by urbanisation.^[1] These spaces often contain nature alongside cities, towns, roads and unsightly but necessary buildings, such as power substations or depots, at the edge of cities.^[2]

History

The concept of edgelands was introduced by Marion Shoard in 2002, to cover the disorganised but often fertile hinterland between planned town and over-managed country.^[3] However, a century and a half earlier, Victor Hugo had already highlighted the existence of what he called "bastard countryside ... ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures, which surrounds certain great cities";^[4] while Richard Jeffries similarly explored the London edgeland in Nature near London (1883).

See also

• Geocriticism
• Human geography
• Thirdspace
• Topophilia
• W. G. Sebald