I'm glad the court case came down on the reasonable side that you can't effectively by half the land (as you buy more and more land of course) to gain control of the entire enclosed area which is clearly what all those land owners thought they could achieve. I wonder if they're going to actually buy the enclosed areas now?
This makes me wonder when the government's plan changed. If the "checkerboard" was meant to hold land until it rose in value and then sell it, why are so many of those parcels public today?
If you haven't listened to the 99% Invisible podcast before, I highly recommend it. Each episode has a little synopsis, and each time I think "wow, this one's a stinker, I'm don't care about this at all," and then that evening my poor spouse has to listen to me talk on and on about the exciting random obscure world I've just been given a peek into. And there are hundreds of episodes.
History is written by the victors. This article is titled “The Checkerboard” but in another universe — one where the private landowners capture land by surrounding it on all four sides — it’s called…
It's always entertaining to hear such absurditites presented with a straight face. An alien studying our race would struggle to understand who would even care about this.
The obvious solution is, of course, to just allow people to pass on other's land. Maybe with some provisionings so ensure it isn't abused. You can already beathe the air legally, why not walk the ground legally?
Land "ownership" isn't really ownership in the physical sense anyway. You are allowed a certain set of rights, but you can't even mine your ground without permission, or dump toxic waste, or forbid planes to pass over. You could easily just decide to let people over on foot, too. It wouldn't take anything away from land rights.
Strange story and it seems like in most developed countries a grant of land in this way would necessarily be accompanied by a public right of way over the corners (and indeed without knowing too much about the case it seems like this is effectively what the court imposed).
Even the fact that the ranch manager got worked up about their having passed over what must have been two feet of private property at the very edge of the ranch leads me to believe that the ranch owner was effectively treating the public square as an extension of his land and recruiting the local authorities to act as his enforcers. All very Yellowstone-y.
This would allow the public to retain 50% of the land, while making sure people are able to pass private lots without trespassing, as well as allowing individual lot owners to access their land without trespassing.
Publicise the name of the pharma executive and get everyone to mock him until he gets the hint that this (perfectly legal) dick-headery comes at a price and, perhaps, mellows.
The Sierra Nevada region has a similar history of using the "checkerboard" pattern to promote railroad building. Organizations like the Trust for Public Land and the Truckee Donner Land Trust that are systematically acquiring many of these checkerboard inholdings to preserved them from future development and open them to low-impact public recreation.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 34.1 ms ] threadI think a good recent starting episode may be "Towers of Silence." https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/towers-of-silence/
No easements or anything.
That land has near zero public use, but you also didn’t get revenues from it. Worst of both worlds.
All for millions of public and private money to be spent trying to figure out your back asswards land ownership scheme.
The Goban: Taking Liberties
https://www.irish-go.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ko-full-...
The obvious solution is, of course, to just allow people to pass on other's land. Maybe with some provisionings so ensure it isn't abused. You can already beathe the air legally, why not walk the ground legally?
Land "ownership" isn't really ownership in the physical sense anyway. You are allowed a certain set of rights, but you can't even mine your ground without permission, or dump toxic waste, or forbid planes to pass over. You could easily just decide to let people over on foot, too. It wouldn't take anything away from land rights.
Even the fact that the ranch manager got worked up about their having passed over what must have been two feet of private property at the very edge of the ranch leads me to believe that the ranch owner was effectively treating the public square as an extension of his land and recruiting the local authorities to act as his enforcers. All very Yellowstone-y.
https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/0101...