Fallow or Failure? Urbanization in the Age of Speculation

Christopher Marcinkoski, Essay, No Density, Politics and economics, Territory and mobility, Urban Paradigms

Agriculture, Construction, Cultivated land, Culture, Ecology, Economic crisis, Economic growth, Economy, Effective zoning, Environmental, Essay, Finance, Housing, Land management, Landscape, Political & Economic Approach, Political implications, Population, Potential, Productivity, Research, Scale, Social environment, Speculation, Territory, Territory&Mobility, Topography, Urban design, Urban Development, Urban infrastructure, Urban planning, Urban settlement, Urbanization

This essay is an excerpt of New Geographies 10: Fallow by Michael Chieffalo & Julia Smachylo.

The fallowing of land implies that a process of resource extraction has previously occurred. It suggests a period of intentional recovery and rest for a territory that has recently served an anthropogenically productive purpose. And it also intimates that said productive purpose—or a similar one—will soon be reinitiated on the territory in question as part of an ongoing process of land cultivation and management. In this way, to lie fallow suggests both an active, productive past and—more importantly in the context of design and planning praxis—an equally active and productive future.