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 other unsightly but necessary buildings, such as power substations or depots, at the edge of cities.[2]
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).