crudscape

C3R1U1D2S1C3A1P3E1

noun

The landscape associated with suburban sprawl.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

nouncrudscape (plural crudscapes)

plural crudscapes

  1. derogatoryurban studiesThe landscape associated with suburban sprawl.

    Cars still in use promote the visual pollution – the car-oriented crudscapes – ubiquitous in metropolitan America.

    2002, Steve Belmont, Cities in Full: Recognizing and Realizing the Great Potential of Urban America, American Planning Association
    3 more examples

    The truth was they had no intention of changing their idiotic zoning laws, or any of the other mechanisms encoded in their building practices that made it impossible to create places worth caring about, and hence they had no chance of solving the spiritual problems engendered by the creeping crudscape.

    1994, The Classicist

    The scene, with its picturesque backdrop, was serene, lovely, and specific, the antithesis of the grinding anonymous highway crudscape where so much of our national life takes place today.

    1998 March 26, James Howard Kunstler, Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World For the 21st Century, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 292

    For there was no roadside ticky-tacky at all, no Burger Kings, no Golden Arches, no car lots, no shopping malls and parking lots, no sprawling cheap housing developments, none of the endless suburban crudscape that marked the ride from the airport to any major American city.

    2013 May 27, Norman Spinrad, Russian Spring, Hachette UK, →ISBN

Origin

From crud + -scape. Coined by American urbanist Edward McMahon.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

crudscape. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crudscape

MLA

“crudscape.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crudscape. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “crudscape,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crudscape.

Source: crudscape on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.