“The ecology of the valley was complex beyond our understanding, and it began to die as we went on manipulating it in ever more frantic ways. As it went dead and empty of the old life it became a place where no one wanted to live. In our right minds we want to seek out places that reek of complexity. Our drive to industrialize soured and undercut the intimacies that drew most people to country life in the first place.” PeopleWayWantMindFirstsCountryWantedDiesUnderstandingLandEmptyComplexesIntimacyComplexityValleysEcologyFranticCountry LifeOld LifeUndercut Author:William Kittredge
“Like the Roman town grid, the New York plan was laid down on largely empty land, a city designed in advance of being inhabited; if the Romans consulted the heavens for guidance in this effort, the city fathers of New York consulted the banks.” IfsFatherHeavenEffortCitiesPlansLandNew YorkEmptyTownsGuidanceGrids Author:Richard Sennett
“The poison was brewed in these West lands but it has spat itself everywhere by now. However far you went you would find the machines, the crowded cities, the empty thrones, the false writings, the barren beds: men maddened with false promises and soured with true miseries, worshipping the iron works of their own hands, cut off from Earth their Mother and from the Father in Heaven. You might go East so far the East became West and you returned to Britain across the great Ocean, but even so you would not have come out anywhere into the light. The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.” MenWritingHandsLightMightEarthMotherFatherHeavenDarkCitiesCuttingLandPromiseBedOceanShadowEmptyMachinesWingsMiseryWestEastPoisonBritainIronThronesCrowdedBarrenFather In HeavenSpatsFalse PromisesCrowded Cities Book:That Hideous Strength Source: That Hideous Strength
“The occupation of America (and Columbus's arrival quite clearly was an occupation, no one can deny that) meant that the entire history of the Native Americans was rendered invisible. The land could only be occupied if it was first defined as empty. So it was defined as a wilderness, even though it had been used by native people for millennia.” PeopleIfsFirstsAmericaUsedLandEmptyDenyInvisibleDefinedNativeWildernessOccupationNative AmericanArrivalsColumbus Author:Vandana Shiva
“Once upon a time there were the Pampas in Argentina, that people could treat as "empty lands" and where they could run away from their problems from problem-ridden homes. That eventuality is no longer available.” PeopleProblemHomeRunningLandEmptyTreatsAvailableRunning AwayOnce Upon A TimeArgentina Author:Zygmunt Bauman