Why value is the first act of fragmentation
Fragmentation begins when land acquires fiscal meaning. Measurement emerges not to understand territory, but to extract value from it. Boundaries become instruments of taxation.
Cadastral systems formalize parcels for revenue purposes, while registries consolidate rights for inheritance and transfer. The same terrain is reinterpreted as divisible property.
Hydrology becomes productive resource management, and topography becomes legal evidence. Mobility serves control and connection, not only passage.
The territory does not physically change, but its conceptual structure does. It is no longer landscape; it becomes inventory. Value is the first lens that divides space into administrative realities.
One territory. Five scenarios.
Understand how measurement reshaped territorial logic.
Previous: Scenario I | Before land had purpose
Next: Scenario III | When sectors took control
Conceptual reference: Territorial Scenarios