Public policies for vacant land are among the least understood but most important aspects of urban policy and politics. In this book, Ann O'M. Bowman and Michael Pagano highlight important issues regarding such land and offer useful frameworks for understanding the policies and politics that shape its future uses. In doing so, they provide a unique and useful perspective on land use policies and politics, which are a key—if not the key—aspect of local policy and politics.

The subject merits special attention because land plays a unique role in local politics. Unable to regulate flows of either capital or labor and fiscally reliant in part on locally generated tax revenues, local governments in the United States are compelled to pay close attention to decisions that affect land use. As a result, in both ailing and growing regions, land-use policies are at the heart of local government.

The nature of those policies and politics varies greatly. When private investors are not proposing new projects, local policymakers and landowners often seek to stimulate development via such policies as tax abatements, land assembly, targeted infrastructure investments, publicly funded projects (such as convention centers), and public support for privately developed projects (such as festival marketplaces). In these arenas, the key issue is whether the decisions about public investments (including the decision to forgo tax revenues) benefit the community as a whole or whether they primarily represent narrow rent-seeking behavior by small, well-mobilized constituencies.

Conversely, localities attractive to private investors often use regulatory powers, such as zoning (and annexation of unincorporated land) to control the timing, scale, and character of new development. In these communities, the key issue is whether developers or homeowners have captured the regulatory system to the detriment of all of a region's residents.

Vacant land is particularly important in both ailing and growing communities because the most significant conflicts about land-use policies generally involve efforts to change the use of a particular parcel of land from one productive endeavor—such as farming or low-density housing—to a use likely to generate more money for the parcel's owner—such as higher-density commercial or residential developments. If, however, the parcels in question are seen as “vacant,” they will be easier to develop because, as Bowman and Pagano point out, “the phrase ‘vacant land’ tends to evoke negative images: abandonment, decay, emptiness, and, in some instances, even danger” (p. 1). Moreover, the authors, who surveyed planners in all U.S. communities with more than 50,000 residents, found that such land is ubiquitous, comprising about 15% of all land in those locales (Table 2.2, p. 29).

All vacant land is not alike, however, as they note. In many Sunbelt communities, vacant land has never been developed and in some cases never even farmed. In these cities, vacant land is a resource to be managed. In older, economically ailing cities, vacant land generally consists of abandoned industrial and residential structures. In these locales, vacant land is a problem not only because it does not provide housing, jobs, or significant revenues but also because the abandoned structures are often used for a variety of illegal activities that can further weaken neighborhoods.

Bowman and Pagano devote the bulk of Terra Incognita to a rich discussion of specific policies for vacant parcels and abandoned buildings, which, they contend “are shaped by three imperatives … a fiscal need to generate resources and to keep a city's fiscal position strong, a social need to create stable neighborhoods and sectors, and to protect property values, and a development need to ensure and enhance the economic vitality of the community” (p. 45). They add that a variety of factors, most notably general economic circumstances, will lead policymakers in specific localities and specific times to give differing weights to each of these factors.

A variety of structural and legal factors also shape local decisions about vacant land and abandoned buildings. Most notably, Bowman and Pagano make a compelling case that the structure of municipal finance plays a major role in shaping particular decisions. Cities that depend on property taxes are more likely to encourage development closer to their core where the community will reap any spillover benefits. Conversely, communities that rely significantly on consumption taxes are more likely to locate developments near their borders, where nonresidents are more likely both to pay some of the taxes and to bear some of the new developments' negative externalities. Cities that rely on income taxes, finally, are more likely to focus on higher-end commercial and residential development.

While noting that this is an idealized framework, Bowman and Pagano offer numerous examples—drawn from locales as diverse as Tempe, Arizona; Columbia, South Carolina; Philadelphia; and Seattle in support of their argument. The mini case studies used in this and other sections are simultaneously one of the book's great strengths and larger weaknesses. On the plus side, they generally serve the desired function of illustrating a particular point. On the negative side, they do not provide enough detail on the political forces that shaped particular decisions or the specific financial information needed to assess the efficacy and wisdom of a community's particular policies.

In the absence of such information, it is difficult to connect the authors' important insights about vacant land to the central questions about urban politics—particularly the historic debates about who has power and how they use it, as well as the emerging questions about how urban politics is being changed as locally owned businesses are replaced by local branches of national and multinational corporations. The shortcomings, however, do not change the fact that they bring a long overdue and insightful focus to the unique role that vacant land plays in urban development.