I just stumbled on a fascinating article from a June’07 issue of New Scientist, introducing me to the term drosscape meaning “urban badlands.”  From the perspective of urban planning and landscape architecture, drosscapes are those abandoned, abused, wasted, unplanned, chaotic &/or polluted landscapes at the farthest edge of large urban areas.  As a word, I find drosscape a bit more poetic, and broader in scope, but similar to brownfields, which I’ve long used to describe similarly spoiled areas (former industrial zones) which are generally located *within* inner cities.   The article includes this wonderful quote from Alan Berger:

“Dross is integral to the urban landscape.
The holes are part of the whole…”

Read the article:   Drosscape – New Scientist (June 4, 2007) .