The Bozjan Front is lousy, lazy content

[Shurrikhan]

It's an open pit because the city of Bozja was destroyed by an attack from Dalamud

Unless the lore was well-known, set well in advance, and somehow too liked to be worth ret-conning, you'll almost always have the causation backwards here.

The zone isn't barren because the city was destroyed; the city was "destroyed" so that the zone design could be barren.

The concept almost always comes first, with the lore merely getting you there.