Why is this land Vacant?

Vacant land ranges from small "missing teeth" and vacant corners to large tracts. The causes of vacancy are equally diverse, and each type of vacant land affords different opportunities and limitations for reuse. Vacant land may be a nuisance and an eyesore, but it offers a rare opportunity to improve quality of life in inner-city neighborhoods.

Vacant land is not evenly distributed. Some neighborhoods have few vacant lots, others have many. West Philadelphia is typical in this regard. Most vacant land in West Philadelphia consists of scattered lots within residential neighborhoods. In other areas, large blocks of vacant land resulted when institutions or businesses closed or relocated or when the ground collapsed over the Mill Creek sewer and buried floodplain.

Vacant Land: A Resource for Reshaping Urban Neighborhoods describes different types of vacant urban land, how they fit into the dynamics of larger natural and social systems, and how they can be reclaimed for a variety of uses to fit the needs of particular people and places. The report also shows how vacant land and subsiding streets and buildings in West Philadelphia correlate with buried streams and filled-in floodplains and proposes solutions that address regional problems of combined sewer overflow.