Industrial rust

Abstract

Cities have experienced periods of growth and decline throughout history, with consistent experiences of collapse and shrinking. The ruins of cities, from the Greek to the Romans, have long been regarded as sites of contemplation on the ephemerality of civilisations. Postindustrial cities were the latest to experience such decline as a result of the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism and from Keynesianism to neoliberalism (Bell 1973), along with the disruptions following the global financial crisis of 2008 (Cairns and Jacobs 2017) and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic (Pallagst et al. 2022).[Part of the text]