@James Wise  Per your request.

Coming out of the late 1800s most of the major west coast cities that we know and love like LA  SF  PDX SEATAC were all subdivided by the same engineering firms  at least SF and Portlandia were.. 

this led to land speculators in the day going out into the Western deserts and other remote areas.. buying what were large land holdings , Spanish land grants and other lands that were not govmit owned.. 

then in the day you could simply create massive subdivisions buy doing basic surveys off of the base and meridian lines.. which all of the west is surveyed off of... this is called section land.

then create these massive tracks of lots.. some were like up in the apple valley, Lancaster,  Barstow type areas mainly 5 acre tracts.. and were done on a grid pattern.. streets in ( mapped but not built)  and of course spiraled out of a small little town off the railroad track or the few roads that existed in those days.. you took your map and recorded it at the county, county was happy they just got 5 thousand lots they could send out tax bills on.. Lots were then sold by speculators to dreamers and others.. And during the depression they used these deeds to these lots to induce people to pay to go to the movies.

In the northern CA and southern Oregon area they created more in town type lots  Clear lake being a famous one.. about 100,000 lots were created there from 1915 to 1930... Christmas VAlley in S Oregon.  the Clear lake lots were in towns called Nice Lucerne Clearlake Oaks and Clearlake. you can find them on maps today.. and you will see roads going up into the hills above town that are just dirt or not even present just mapped.. Christmas valley is one acre or larger tracts.. 

also were your seeing the Hawaii eruptions those are all antiquated massive subdivisions built on a grid on the lava flows. those lots have been traded for ever as well although created the late 50s.. 

Florida has Lehigh Acres and Coral Gables and other famous areas.

The subdivision map act was created to bring organization and control to these massive development that never got built and were just platted.. anything on the west that is 5 lot split or more is subject to the map act..  and then each state or county drills down further. 

In Montana NV NM Texas a lot of these older tracts were done in 20 30 40 acre massive subdivisions out in the middles of no where.. 

Simply watch the Movie Glenn Gary Glenn Ross that is EXACTLY how this stuff was remarket in the 50s and 60s.. 

So todays folks that do it do it mainly on line .. and many foreigners will pay 2 to 5k to won a piece of the US not knowing what they bought was basically worthless.. many cattle ranchers just use this land like its there own.. Moon valley up out of Reno on the CA side of 395 is a classic example of that.. 

Lastly what you will see is that civilization has come out to these places when you drive by and see some desert rat in his or her Mobile home stuck in the middle of no where that 95% of the time is on one of these old platted lots.. 

some areas Like some of the Lake co California areas town actually grew to them sewer and water and paved streets put in and houses built

But for instance above Lucerne there are 7 thousand platted lots and I think 3 homes.. lots are 5 to 7k sq feet.. it was uncanny how they surveyed and platted them way back when .. this terrain is quite step but the road follow correct grades although some lots even with today techniques would be near impossible to build on..