An Urban Mining Ecology: Butte, America

The process of extraction has a profound impact onthe environment, transforming and disfiguring theland through the sorting of geological conditions thathas resulted in the Anthropocene age. The valuingof resources and their extraction over the inhabitablesurface has fueled the development of this country andthe settlement of remote places. It was the existence ofa vast mineral resource under the Butte Hill in the late1800’s that set the stage for urbanization in this remoteplace and the trajectory for a new ecology, an urbanmining ecology. Too often the industrialized sortingof the land creates a resultant landscape and is notseen as an opportunistic condition as well. By utilizingthe Butte Hill as a place to test alternative strategiesto extraction and reclamation, contemporary andfuture sites can shift their current extractive practicesto avoid the unusable post-industrial ecology. Thispaper examines the history of Butte, Montana thathas created the current urban condition through theprioritization of extraction as a unique place to examineprojective futures for a post-industrial ecology, onethat does not see the evils of the past as something tohide or attempt to eliminate. Rather one that seeksto leverage the efforts of transforming a contaminatedplace for a new community; one that engages theenvironment of the future and the Anthropocene age.

Volume Editors
Luis Francisco Rico-Gutierrez & Martha Thorne

ISBN
978-1-944214-08-1