Paper townsite

A paper townsite, also called a paper town, is a common use term describing a city or town which purportedly exists but in reality exists only on paper and has little or no buildings, infrastructure or permanent inhabitants. Such a town is often a speculative land development venture by a land or town company or other landholder to sell and develop property, often through advertising and promotion. Often paper townsites were not in locations ideally suited for popular for settlement, hence why they remained towns only on paper. Paper townsites have often materialized in highly speculative places such as gold rush regions, and occasionally some other paper townsites became real ones.