As climate change intensifies, governments are being pressured to implement programs that remove, relocate, or abandon settlements and infrastructure that can no longer be sustained. 

Buy-out site in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

This process, known as Managed Retreat, is being quietly implemented across the continent. In vulnerable areas, entire towns and tens of thousands of single-family homes are being bought out and demolished, with the land left to revert to wetlands and forests.

Driveway of a bought-out home, Iowa City, Iowa

The ideals of homeownership and stability—the foundation of the American Dream—are being undone through urban triage. Once meticulously divided by fences, zoning laws, and neighborhood covenants, these abandoned landscapes become open, undefined spaces stripped of their speculative value.

Former residental road in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Encompassing tens of thousands of properties, these spaces fall outside the reach of both state control and corporate interests, transforming into ungoverned territories where new forms of habitation and communal life might emerge.

Flooded grid outside of Devils Lake, North Dakota

Crumbling Land documents these shifting landscapes, tracing the transformation of communities displaced by climate migration, envisioning them as a new commons.

All photos by Noah Gotlib
© Noah Gotlib 2025