Old-style manufacturing, which critics complained was creating an industrial wasteland, was run down in the quest for a competitive new Britain.

BBC: Obituary: Margaret Thatcher

There is only one police station geared up to take the claims in Athens, in a squalid industrial wasteland, called Petrou Ralli.

BBC: Greece asylum: Journey through a broken system

At the beginning of August, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed an agreement that could revivify thousands of acres of wasteland contaminated by industrial pollution in New York City.

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