Rethinking vacancy within the urbanization process: towards a new research agenda

Abstract

Vacant land and property have periodically been the focus of urban research but remain undertheorized. However, a recent resurgence of scholarly interest has reinvigorated the topic and offers an opportune moment to critically advance theorization. The paper positions vacant land and property–normatively characterized as “surplus”, “waste”, or “empty” space–as active, lively, and contested within urbanization and urban political processes. It proceeds in three parts. First, it shows how vacant land and property have historically constituted a lacuna in urban research, variously conceptualized as passive within urbanization or active outside urbanization. Second, it summarizes how recent work on, and intersecting with, vacancy has begun to fill these conceptual and empirical gaps. Finally, the paper concludes with a heuristic of producing vacancy, maintaining vacancy, and removing vacancy to outline a research agenda that positions vacant land and property as central to the analysis of urbanization, urban politics, and urban governance.