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However, the remaining vast tracts of unsettled estate were often used as a commons, or, in the American west, "open range." As degradation of habitat developed due to overgrazing and a tragedy of the commons situation arose, hackneyed areas began to either be allocated to individual landowners via mechanisms such as the Homestead Code and Desert Fence Repair Austin Area Act and fenced in, or, if kept in metropolitan hands, leased to individual users for local purposes, with fences built to distant tracts of accessible and private land.
Five foot high fences (over which many people can see and talk) are deliberately being superseded by six-foot fences giving the impression of complete privacy.