Big plots, small plots - Diversity? (Research)

What makes something ‘diverse’, and why is diversity important? In discussing cities, how does diversity contribute to urban resilience? Would there be any relationship between mechanisms of urban diversity and bio-diversity in urban and rural places?

Diversity in the sense of urbanism might refer to diversity in built objects, such as types of buildings regarding the scale, functions, history, prices, materials, or social-cultural, socio-economical diversity, gender and racial diversity and other geographical features and diversity of vegetation and animal habitation. It could refer to the size of neighbourhoods, types of streets, public transportation, or just the types of businesses in the area. Whatever there are in the cities that make the urban ‘place’ can define a piece of diversity in its typology.

In this blog post, the Vernacular X-city, I will make a historical comparison between Japan and Sweden regarding land division and how it might contribute to diversity.

After World War II, the United States initiated significant agrarian land reform in Japan, resulting in the redistribution of farmland from landlords to tenant farmers. This reform, known as the Japanese agrarian reform of 1947, allowed around three million households to purchase land and enabled six million farm families to acquire smallholdings averaging less than 1 hectare per family. This division of farmland into smaller units contributed to the generation of diverse, individualized, piecemeal type development.

During modernisation, Japan's Agricultural Land Law of 1952 underwent revisions in 1970, 1980, and 1991, easing restrictions and enabling changes in land-use types and the buying and selling of farmland. The flexibility to change the land use and to further divide results in how Japanese land use plot sizes. In Tokyo, privately-owned land parcels exhibit significant fragmentation, with about 46% of parcels being smaller than 100 square meters and 32% ranging between 100 and 200 square meters.

While the subdivision of land parcels can pose challenges for large-scale urban development, it also supports rapid adaptation during swift growth and change periods. The individualized development made possible by these small parcels can facilitate quick adjustments to evolving circumstances.

Unlike in Japan, in Sweden, things have worked differently. There are rather strict rules about dividing up agricultural and forestry land. These rules are meant to ensure efficient land use. The main rulebook for organizing land is the Real Property Formation Act. This law has evolved over the years due to different changes.

In the past, Sweden rearranged its agrarian land to make farming more efficient and modern. They combined smaller pieces of land owned by smaller farmers into larger ones, efficiently creating larger farmland owned and managed by families who live in their farm properties. Before these land reforms, farmlands were fragmented and divided between the farmers to guarantee that each farmer had pieces of land that were fair in quality distribution. For instance, a farmer would have a small piece of fertile plot on the west side of the farm property and another a bit less fertile in the middle. While this made the farm towns more diverse and provided better social cohesion, the land use reform allowed industrial farming with enough space for the new machines. Because of this history, the current rules make splitting the land into smaller parts tough. The idea is that larger plots work better for modern farming and forestry, leading to better productivity and profits.

However, these rules have consequences. There are now fewer small farms in Sweden, which makes it harder for young people to get into farming. Over time, the rules have been tweaked to match the country's changing needs, but researchers are looking into bigger changes. They want to balance productive land and adapting to new environmental and social needs. Bigger farms owned by farm landlords also inhibit biodiversity in the farmlands, rather, monoculture, lower-quality food, unsustainable practices, and problems of the ageing farm owners.

Is fragmentation a natural processes due to division through inheritance and or necessary land-use changes to adapt to changes, or is it more of a nuisance since, managing smaller-scale entities are costly and more complex??