Across America, there are towns built on a promise. A mine, a plant, a refinery, a railroad — something that offered work, growth, and a future. The Geography of Consequence examines what happens after that promise breaks.

Some of these communities were contaminated by chemicals and industrial waste. Others were hollowed out when employers closed, resources ran dry, or investment moved on. In many cases, the defining event is no longer visible. There’s no wreckage to point to — only a landscape that quietly carries the cost.

This project by Gary Buzel photographs those places as they are now, and the people still living with what was left behind. It begins in Picher, Oklahoma, once a lead and zinc boomtown, now a ghost town on Superfund land.