[A] valuable resource for understanding post-industrial urbanism and the challenges of urban development, such as the transformation of former factories, warehouses and other industrial buildings into loft apartments, offices, restaurants and more.-- "Urban Studies" A readable, accessible, comprehensive account of the stories of defunct factories, grain silos, and train stations that focuses on their possibility and promise as postindustrial sites.-- "Library Journal" The ruins of factories and refineries in Buffalo, Detroit, and Pittsburgh offer new possibilities for revitalizing the Rust Belt, according to this architectural study from urbanist Campo.-- "Publishers Weekly" When we cannot rely on the private market or the public sector to pursue the preservation and stewardship of disused industrial landscapes, we may turn to creative, citizen-led initiatives to step into the void. Dan Campo is our intrepid, interpretive guide through these fascinating buildings and places, making the case for their enduring significance, inspiring readers to take action, and nudging public policy toward supporting these efforts.---Elihu Rubin, Associate Professor of Urbanism at the Yale School of Architecture This remarkable book takes us into the world of large-scale urban abandonment where conventional top-down preservation seems doomed to fail, but where citizens groups, arts collectives and marginal entrepreneurs have managed to substitute their own DIY idealism and improvisations. Campo's wonderfully-written and deeply-engaged book lifts historic preservation out of its elitist cul-de-sac and points towards possibilities of bottom-up renewal. He goes beyond preservation to speak to everyone struggling to act - whether for preservation, or sustainability, or anti-racism or equity - when so many bureaucracies and experts seem paralyzed.

---Robert Fishman, Taubman College of Architecture and Planning, University of Michigan Campo looks beneath the shiny surfaces and official histories of cities to tell the stories of how independent, resistant, and creative people are reshaping the post-industrial city. It is also a history of how the relentless "growth machine" of urban redevelopment continues to undervalue the communities and cultures that have emerged at sites and districts from Pittsburgh to Buffalo. Campo's deeply researched, compellingly argued, and thoughtfully pragmatic manifesto is a critical contribution toward a more progressive and more original American urbanism.---Ray Gastil, former City Planning Director for Pittsburgh (2014-19) Daniel Campo has given us an enlightening, compassionate and critical book about abandoned industrial ruins and the intrepid people who have inhabited them through diverse acts of transgression. These large, seductive complexes have been unencumbered by official regimes, literally 'out of control, ' permissive and wild. Campo excavates and reconstructs the histories of five significant industrial sites since abandonment in Buffalo, Detroit and Pittsburgh with the stories of artists, youth, former workers, preservationists, local communities and ex-urban explorers. Without permission or standing, 'post-industrial DIYer' creatively inhabited and enlivened these ruins. What's next? Must these places be tamed by legitimate reuse? Is stabilization and ongoing itinerant use possible? Campo tells an engaging story while posing compelling questions about their future.

---Lynda H. Schneekloth, Professor Emerita, School of Architecture and Planning, University at Buffalo/SUNY.