Urban prairie is a term to describe vacant urban land that has reverted to green space. Previous structures occupying the urban lots have been demolished, leaving patchy areas of green space that are usually untended and unmanaged, forming an involuntary park. Sometimes, however, the prairie spaces are intentionally created to facilitate amenities, such as

green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which h ...

s, community gardens and wildlife reserve habitats.

History

Urban prairies can result from several factors. The value of aging buildings may fall too low to provide financial incentives for their owners to maintain them. Vacant properties may have resulted from

deurbanization Counterurbanization, or deurbanization, is a demographic and social process whereby people move from urban areas to rural areas. It is, like suburbanization, inversely related to urbanization. It first occurred as a reaction to inner-city deprivat ...

or crime, or may have been seized by local government as a response to unpaid

property taxes A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inherit ...

. Since vacant structures can pose health and safety threats (such as

fire hazard Fire safety is the set of practices intended to reduce the destruction caused by fire. Fire safety measures include those that are intended to prevent the ignition of an uncontrolled fire and those that are used to limit the development and ef ...

s), or be used as a location for

criminal activity In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

, cities often demolish them. Sometimes areas are cleared of buildings as part of a revitalization plan with the intention of redeveloping the land. In flood-prone areas, government agencies may purchase developed lots and then demolish the structures to improve drainage during floods. Some neighborhoods near major industrial or environmental clean-up sites are acquired and leveled to create a buffer zone and minimize the risks associated with pollution or industrial accidents. Such areas may become nothing more than fields of overgrown vegetation, which then provide

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

for wildlife. Sometimes it is possible for residents of the city to fill up the unplanned empty space with urban parks or community gardens. Urban prairie is sometimes planned by the government or non-profit groups for

community gardens A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...

and

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and manageme ...

, to restore or reintroduce a wildlife habitat, help the environment, and educate people about the prairie.Missouri Conservation News
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Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, Michigan is one particular city that has many urban prairies. In the case of the city of

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

in New Zealand, earthquake damage from the 2011 earthquake caused the underground water table to raise and leak significantly in places, preventing reconstruction of damaged buildings. Many former residential areas in eastern Christchurch suburbs have been purchased by the government and demolished, as the soft soil causes the houses to shift and pose significant danger to the inhabitants. It is unknown if many of the waterlogged areas of Christchurch will ever fully recover. Urban prairies may be established to lower the burden of mowing and related upkeep by the governmental entity that is overseeing it, letting weeds develop.

References

External links

*{{Commons category-inline, Urban prairie
City of Des Moines Urban Prairie Project
Urban studies and planning terminology

Prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

Prairies Urban decay