City governments own or regulate vacant land and abandoned structures. In t
his article, the authors summarize new vacant-land survey data, examine the
conditions and causes of vacant land, analyze city policy toward vacant la
nd, and explore the possible interconnections among conditions, causes, and
policies. They find that vacant land most often is associated with cities
that have expanded their political boundaries, and the number of abandoned
structures is related to a city's change in population. Thus vacant land an
d abandoned structures are nor interchangeable indicators of decay and dest
ruction; rather, they have separate causes and need different policies.