Fallow Land, Recession and Socio-Demographic Local Contexts: Recent Dynamics in a Mediterranean Urban Fringe

Urban settlements have globally expanded into rural land. Being influenced by complex socio-environmental dynamics and sometimes acting as a reserve of economic value, fallow land has characterized rural areas in a distinctive way over the last decades. The present work debates on the role of fallow land as a component of Mediterranean peri-urban landscapes, considering together different aspects from environmental/agronomic and regional science perspectives. An empirical analysis of the latent relationship between spatial distribution of fallow land, agricultural landscape (land-use, territorial, and topographic characteristics), and urban sprawl was carried out in a representative Mediterranean case study (Athens, Greece) evidencing the possible linkage between urban growth/containment, conservation of rural biodiversity/local traditions, and fallow land (intended as a candidate source of buildable land) in fringe districts. Urban growth at the local scale was contrasted with the spatial distribution of fallow land under sequential expansions and recessions of the regional economic system. Conservation of marginal rural land in fringe districts—including fallow land—is a necessary target of any sustainable land management strategy in metropolitan contexts experiencing rapid socioeconomic transformations.