An empty lot is rarely empty of someone’s plans for it.

Land that looks unused is rarely unclaimed. Somebody is planning something for it, somebody may be using it informally, and somebody else has a memory attached to it. Empty is a description of the visible surface, not of the interests attached to the ground.

If a space near you is about to change, the decision is usually being made in a meeting nobody attends. Turning up to one of those is unglamorous and it is roughly the only point at which an ordinary person has any influence over the physical shape of where they live.