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城市扩张与鬼城：采矿对城市的影响
Urban Sprawl and Ghost Towns: The Impact of Mining on Cities

由专筑网邢子，小R编译

我们今天居住的城市住区之所以以现在的形式存在，是有许多原因的。有的城市因靠近水而发展，如Dar es Salaam发展成为今天的主要港口城市。还有散布在世界各地的计划中的首都，如巴西和尼日利亚等国家的政府根据建筑师的意见重新开始建设城市。也有因为某些行业而存在和发展的定居点，如美国加州的硅谷是科技行业巨头的家。然而，有一个行业既催生了动荡的城市，也催生了废弃城镇的采矿业。

矿业城镇和社区通常起源于发现有价值矿藏的特定地点，然后建造矿山和采石场以开采资源。美国有大量这样的矿业城镇，其中大部分形成于19世纪和20世纪，因为美国工业化和淘金热，寻求财富的人，主要是年轻的单身男子，他们蜂拥而至这些新发现的金矿所在地。

然而，采矿业可能是一个变化无常的行业。许多在淘金热期间兴起的城镇，由于矿井枯竭或自然灾害而被遗弃。美国内华达州的柏林镇就是一个例子，这个定居点展示了企业城镇的局限性。该镇成立于19世纪80年代，是银矿开采的中心，养活了大约250人，包括矿工、伐木工人和一名医生。柏林镇的遗弃是对公司城镇如何剥削的控诉，因为正是1907年的矿工罢工导致了柏林镇今天的 "鬼城"现状。工人们对提高工资的要求没有得到公司的重视，这最终导致了人们的大规模外流，留下了破旧的建筑。

The urban settlements we inhabit today exist in their present form due to a host of reasons. There are cities that have grown due to their proximity to water – such as the growth of Dar es Salaam to the major port city it is today. There are the planned capital cities scattered around the world, governments of countries such as Brazil and Nigeria building cities from scratch from the input of acclaimed architects. There are also the settlements that exist and grow because of certain industries, such as Silicon Valley in the American state of California being home to giants of the technology industry. There’s an industry, however, that has spawned both pulsating cities and abandoned towns – the mining industry.
Mining towns and communities usually have their origins around a particular location where a valuable mineral deposit was discovered – which then led to the construction of mines and quarries for extraction of the resource. The United States is home to a large number of these mining towns, most of them formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as the country industrialised and underwent the Gold Rush, with fortune seekers – mainly young, single men – flocking to the site of newly discovered gold deposits.
Mining, however, can be a fickle industry. Many of the towns that sprung up during the Gold Rush were left abandoned as mines were depleted or due to natural disasters. The town of Berlin in the U.S state of Nevada is an example of this – a settlement which displayed the limitations of company towns. Established in the 1880s, the town was a hub for the mining of silver, and supported around 250 people including miners, woodcutters, and a doctor. The abandonment of Berlin is an indictment of how company towns can be exploitative, as it was a 1907 miner’s strike that led to Berlin’s present-day “ghost town” status. Worker’s demands for higher wages were not listened to by the company, which eventually caused a mass exodus of people, leaving behind dilapidated structures.


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其他美国鬼城，如独立镇和卡森镇，由于天气原因，荒无人烟，例如后者由于漫长的严冬而被遗弃。东欧单一城镇的衰落也有据可查，位于苏联的采煤镇沃尔库塔是今天萎缩最快的城市之一，与该镇在20世纪80年代拥有25万居民形成了鲜明的对比。

Other American ghost towns such as Independence and Carson were left empty of human population due to the weather, the latter town for example left abandoned due to long and harsh winters. The fall of monotowns in Eastern Europe is well documented too, the coal-mining town of Vorkuta in what was the Soviet Union one of the fastest shrinking cities today, a complete contrast to the town being home to 250,000 residents in the 1980s.


Image © Alexander Veryovkin for Zupagrafika

然而，采矿镇并不总是会消逝于无声无息或默默无闻中。今天，全球的许多大都市都可以追溯到它们作为采矿定居点的起源。南非约翰内斯堡市的历史是与在其土地上发现的黄金紧密相连的。与美国的淘金热同时发生的还有南非，1886年的威特沃特斯兰淘金热改变了这个城市的面貌。10年后，这里形成了一个成熟的城市，在最初的淘金热30年后，约翰内斯堡成为南非最大的城市。

Mining towns, nevertheless, do not always fade into obscurity or irrelevance. Many of the large metropolises around the globe today can trace their roots to humble origins as mining settlements. The history of the city of Johannesburg in South Africa goes hand-in-hand with the discovery of gold on its lands. Happening parallel to the gold rush in the United States was a similar phenomenon in South Africa, as the Witwatersrand gold rush of 1886 transformed the landscape of the city. 10 years saw the formation of a fully-fledged town, and 30 years after the initial gold rush, Johannesburg was South Africa's largest city.


Image © Mark Lewis

在经济上，约翰内斯堡没有遭受其他淘金热后兴起的"新兴城市"的命运，在不平等的剥削背景下，约翰内斯堡转变为一个大都市，这种剥削使非洲本地人口被边缘化，并导致非正式定居点的增加。

Economically, the city of Johannesburg did not suffer the fate of other “boom-towns” which sprouted after the gold rush, with Johannesburg's transformation into a metropolis only coming on the back of unequal exploitative practices which marginalised the native African populations and causing an increase in informal settlements.


© Flickr User sea turtle under the (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

今天，约翰内斯堡的空置金矿在搬迁到农村地区后，被居民占据，他们建造了自己的住房和社区。矿业公司在约翰内斯堡建造的深井矿场导致了生态环境的破坏，大型矿场垃圾堆成为约翰内斯堡城市景观的明显特征。这种环境恶化反过来又使居住在约翰内斯堡采矿带周围的居民的生活状况变得不稳定。

如今，关于世界各地不良采矿行为的讨论比比皆是，了解围绕该行业建立的定居点是一个有用的视角，有助于评估我们今天的城市景观，并批判性地审视未来的企业城镇。

Today, Johannesburg’s vacant gold mines – after their relocation to more rural areas – are occupied by residents who have constructed their own housing and communities. Deep-shaft mines built by mining companies in Johannesburg have led to a damaged ecological habitat, with large mine dumps a conspicuous feature of Johannesburg’s urban landscape. This environmental degradation in turn makes for a precarious living situation for residents residing around Johannesburg’s mining belt.
As conversations abound today on unethical mining practices taking place around the world, an understanding of the settlements built around the industry is a useful lens for evaluating our urban landscapes today, and critically examining the company towns of the future.


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