Die „Sozialbrache“ als Phänomen der geographischen Differenzierung der Landschaft
Authors: Hartke Wolfgang 
Published: February 2023

Deserted settlements and waste fields have been familiar phenomena in many parts of the world. Current opinion is that during periods of decreasing population the cultural landscape will show at first features of atrophy or regression, then a decrease in the area of cultivated land and finally a disappearance of whole settlements. Observations have shown that in certain parts of South-Western Germany numerous parcels of land have suddenly been left to lie fallow. Normally 5-10 per cent., and in some cases up to 50 and 60 per cent. of the agricultural land has been affected in this way. lt is worth noting that these features of agricultural regression have coincided exactly with the period of the general economic resurgence in Western Germany after the Second World War. In fact those villages which show these features of regression within their territory have had a particularly large share in the general rise in prosperity. It can be shown that physical geography is not responsible for this phenomenon. It was by no means the poor soils which were first left to lie fallow, followed only later by the better soils. Nor did the economic law of "soil migrating to the best farmer" operate. Investigation proved the existence of a close connexion between this feature and processes of social differentiation brought about by the influence of modern forms of industrialization. Hence the choice of the term "social-fallow" ("Sozialbrache"): "social" because of the reason of its existence, and "fallow" because of its character as a temporary phenomenon. The "social-fallow" appears as a most useful geographical index in the landscape indicating an incipient or progressing process of social differentiation. As soon as this progress has been completed, the areas temporarily left fallow will be reinvested with a new function or use in a new system of land utilization. They will thus become associated with a new social stratum and merely through this will fulfil a new function. Historical records show that also in former times such periods of an abundance of fallow land occurred and ceased again. Then as now they appeared as an indication of the beginning of a new socio-geographical cycle in the evolution of the cultural landscape. They should be carefully distinguished from what has so far been called waste or deserted fields (Flurwüstung). These investigations justify the demand that, in order to explain phenomena of differentiation in the landscape, more attention than has been customary should be given to the socio-geographical conditions at least in the case of countries with a civilization of long standing. The scale of values on the basis of which the successful or unsuccessful decisions and speculations of daily life are taken plays the decisive role in this process of differentiation in the geographical landscape. At any rate nature does not provide the rigid framework of determining causes to which man adapts himself, as the ideas of the 19th century make out. Only when it emerges into a relationship with a given order of social values does it acquire determining influence. Thus the landscape incorporates the results of the successful or unsuccessful speculations on the part of different human groups. From this investigation of the "social fallow" follows that within the field of applied geography and regional planning decisive importance should from the very beginning be accorded to the social factors. Even in planning neither climate nor soil have a predetermined static geographical value. Rather is their value determined by their relation as production factors to the whole social structure and to the order of values of the respective population.