Guideline for Spatial Regeneration in Iowa

The space of Iowa was reinvented in the nineteenth century as a reflection of the modern rationality of capital production. This resulted in the overlay of a grid system of surveys that indiscriminately subdivided the land subduing its embodied natural and cultural characteristics. The grid provided the structure whereby farms, towns and cities were created to cover the entirety of the state and established a network of agricultural and industrial production. This modern landscape also produced the culture of the family farm which, until the mid-twentieth century, was the dominant production unit in Iowa. Iowa is currently experiencing significant challenges on social, economic and environmental levels that accentuate the tension between the modern cycles of production and the sustainability of the social and natural environment. This research is an attempt to negotiate this tension by proposing a spatial regeneration scheme for Iowa that is developed through interdisciplinary research and cartographic analysis and production.