Vanished Landscapes: The Socio-Economic and Environmental Impact of Abandonment

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-872-1_55How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Abandonment; urban decay; ghost towns; environmental degradation; socio-economic decline; Lavasa; resilience theory; sustainable redevelopment

Abstract

In this paper, we are analysing the urban abandonment using a broad socio-economic and environmental framework complemented by four case studies pertaining to different situations Teufelsberg (Germany), Detroit (USA), Bhangarh Fort (India), and Lavasa (India). The abandonment in Western context has been well reported in scholarship, but a critical gap nevertheless exists in comprehending how the forces of rapid urbanisation, failure of government, and environmental limitations combine in the developing world to produce versions-of-the-urban-and-rural-decline. Attempting to fill this gap, the prototype is questioning the causal mechanisms as well as the consequences of abandonment giving extra emphasis on the case of Lavasa as the example of a modern urban failure. Through the resilience theory, the study investigates how restructuring of the economy, environmental disasters both natural and caused by human beings and the issues of governance interact to achieve abandonment. It also considers the redevelopment strategies, which are deemed to be sustainable given the urban planning and engagement of the communities coupled with adaptive reuse activities, which may play a critical role in reducing the risks of abandonment, as well as promoting resilience in cities. The research conclusion is that a set of policy recommendations related to the enhancement of sustainable redevelopment has been developed and that future research directions have been proposed that could improve urban resilience, in particular in India and other developing countries.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ayush Singh
AU  - Bitto Benny
AU  - Brhathi Murali
AU  - Sahil Choithramani
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/11/04
TI  - Vanished Landscapes: The Socio-Economic and Environmental Impact of Abandonment
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Business Practices and Innovative Models (ICSBPIM-2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 890
EP  - 901
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-872-1_55
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-872-1_55
ID  - Singh2025
ER  -