Abstract
<p>While vacant land in cities has long been considered a sign of decline, a growing literature now suggests that such land can serve valuable social and ecological functions. In this article, I argue that such approaches advocated to date, while beneficial, operate within a New Urbanist framework that is essentially concerned with filling in vacant land with new 'green' projects. Unfortunately, such approaches are limited by a conceptualization of the city that treats inner city vacant lots as paradigmatic and makes invisible the systematic creation of functionally vacant land through zoning and building practices in low-density residential areas. Inspired by degrowth scholarship, I suggest that permaculture may provide the basis for an alternative approach based in the concept of fallowing more suited to the full range of vacant land present in American cities and suburbs. I explore the implications of such an approach through the practice of two permaculture-inspired intentional communities in the Pacific Northwest.</p><strong>Key words: </strong>vacant land, permaculture, New Urbanism, intentional communities, commons, degrowth
Highlights
While cities are commonly imagined as separate from and opposed to nature, urban political ecologists point to the myriad ways in which cities are inseparably entangled with environments both within and far beyond their boundaries, and dependent on ecological systems for their survival (Cronon 1991; Gandy 2003; Kelman 2003; Rosen and Tarr 1994)
The urban design philosophy broadly referred to as New Urbanism offers an influential slate of practical solutions responding to urban ecology's critique, including greater density, mixed uses, and the rejection of car-centric design ("The Charter of the New Urbanism," n.d.; Duany, Plater-Zyberk and Speck 2000; Jackson 1985; Kunstler 1993)
Such plans for 'sustainable' or 'smart' development are often expensive, potentially serving processes and agents of gentrification, and perpetuating spatial segregation and environmental inequality (Gray-O'Connor 2009; Pyatok 2000; for a cautiously optimistic perspective, see Bohl 2000). Underlying these problems is the fact that New Urbanist design solutions are offered within an implicit ecomodernist framework which proposes that growth can be decoupled from environmental impact, and is predisposed to solutions that continue to invite or require new development (Asafu-Adjaye et al 2015)
Summary
While cities are commonly imagined as separate from and opposed to nature, urban political ecologists point to the myriad ways in which cities are inseparably entangled with environments both within and far beyond their boundaries, and dependent on ecological systems for their survival (Cronon 1991; Gandy 2003; Kelman 2003; Rosen and Tarr 1994). The urban design philosophy broadly referred to as New Urbanism offers an influential slate of practical solutions responding to urban ecology's critique, including greater density, mixed uses, and the rejection of car-centric design ("The Charter of the New Urbanism," n.d.; Duany, Plater-Zyberk and Speck 2000; Jackson 1985; Kunstler 1993) Such plans for 'sustainable' or 'smart' development are often expensive, potentially serving processes and agents of gentrification, and perpetuating spatial segregation and environmental inequality (Gray-O'Connor 2009; Pyatok 2000; for a cautiously optimistic perspective, see Bohl 2000). I turn to Songaia, a suburban cohousing community outside of Seattle, to examine how a permacultural approach to fallow land can help us to design richer and more functional ecosystems on a wider scale
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