The places in Land: Five Case Studies were sites of giveaways of marginal, unbuildable land as advertising promotions, or the sale of uninhabitably small parcels (2" or smaller).

The project is comprised of photos and archival materials from each site – maps of the land, deeds, photographs, inquiries about never-visited land in remote places, and a current photograph. Four people who live near the sites have collaborated by traveling to the locations to document the land now.

With the exception of larger lots in Huntington Beach, CA and Newark, CA, where the land, while 'marginal' and oddly shaped, was buildable, most landowners were unable to make use of their micro-holdings, or afford to purchase significant adjacent parcels to expand them to usable size. Most of the land was never occupied, and some land was eventually recuperated by tax default, unbeknownst to the deed holders. Surprisingly, in some cases the free or cheap land did gain in value, was buildable, had oil found underneath, or was eventually resold at a profit.

Developers, cities, and other entities that could afford to manage fragmented title and clear tax issues often bought parcels in bulk, sometimes using lawsuits to quiet title, or condemning lands whose owners would not agree to sell. This happened in Newark, CA (now a shopping mall) and at the Lazy C Ranch in Texas (first a golf course, now a subdivision), and at the Klondike Big Inch Land Co. in the Yukon Territory (now the world's northernmost golf course). It also signals the move of lands once thought of as cheap, marginal, and distant wildernesses to nearby and profitable.

The enthusiasm for and fascination with the possibilities of marginally inhabitable places remains unchecked, whether in Gordon Matta-Clark's Fake Estates, or Web 2.0 projects like Loveland, Detroit, failing towns offering free land to stayers, and current inch-of-land schemes. Along with enthusiasm for novelties of property, these places raise the issue of how land is transformed into property, and the dispossession that results from this transformation, as seen in the hopes of micro-land owners for the stability that property ownership confers in a land transformed to property, where all non-landowners are pre-dispossesed.

In March 2010 a square inch of land was purchased for $10 in Liberty County, Texas, and deeded to Exhibition of Proposals for a Socialist Colony.

Credits

Contributing photographers: Sasha Dela (Richmond, TX), Kim Stringfellow (Huntington Beach), Veronica Verkley (Dawson, YT), Lissa Ivy Tiegel (Newark, CA)

Archival materials, photographs, and research assistance: David McDonald, Caren Ferrera, Richard Fujikawa, Debra Jubinski, David Tritter, Bruce Baker, John Baker, and Allison Carter

Additional thanks to posters on First American Title's Landsakes blog – Bert Rush, Don Schenker, R.J. Dold, and Keith Pearson