# What is bulldozing on Square Town?

> Bulldozing on Square Town is evicting a square without taking it: pay the eviction price (2× what the owner paid, $1 minimum), place nothing, and the lot reopens at $0. Anonymous by design.

Source: https://square.pov.town/glossary/bulldozing

**Bulldozing** (on Square Town) is an eviction where nobody moves in: you pay exactly what an eviction costs — **double what the current owner paid, $1 minimum** — but you place no URL, no email and no name. The owner is evicted and notified like any eviction; their favicon comes off the wall; and instead of your favicon appearing in the cell, the lot sits **empty and free**, claimable by anyone for $0 — including the site you just flattened. Square Town ([square.pov.town](/)) announces it in the live feed as "🚜 Somebody paid $4 to bulldoze example.com. Nobody moved in — the lot is free again."

> **TL;DR:** an eviction minus the moving in. Same 2× price, same $1 floor, same notice to the victim — but the payer is anonymous, the square ends up empty, and the doubling ladder resets to $0 with it.

## How it works on Square Town

Click any favicon in town, and under the evict button there's a quieter one: *"…or just bulldoze it — same price, take nothing, leave rubble."* The price is identical to an eviction — 2× what the current owner paid, or $1 if they claimed free. The form asks for nothing: no URL (there's no site to place), no email (there's nothing to own, so nothing to warn you about). Payment is by card through Stripe; the checkout reserves the block for 30 minutes so an evictor and a bulldozer can't collide. Programmatically it's `POST /api/bulldoze` with just the target's id — see the [API docs](/api).

When payment lands, the target's status becomes *evicted* (their [deed](/glossary/deed) gets the EVICTED stamp, their `/go/` link answers "Gone (probably evicted 💀)", and they're mailed if they asked to be — the mail tells them the lot is free and links them straight back to it). The cell itself reverts to ordinary empty ground: free to claim, by anyone, immediately. Because the next claim is free, the [eviction](/glossary/eviction) price ladder resets — the square that cost $8 to bulldoze costs $1 to evict once someone new sits in it.

## Why it exists

Eviction answers "I want that square." Bulldozing answers "I want *them* off it." Those are different wants, and the second one turns out not to need a replacement favicon: removing a competitor from the cell beside the [Throne](/glossary/the-throne)'s aura, or from the corner your product page screenshots, is worth the same money whether or not your own icon takes the spot — sometimes more, because nothing points back at you. It is the pettiest object in town, and it is priced accordingly: identically.

## Example

Your competitor holds the cell your favicon used to occupy, having evicted you for $1. You could evict them back for $2 and re-enter the ladder. Or you pay the same $2 to bulldoze them: they're out, the cell is empty, and the feed credits "somebody". They can reclaim it free — and you can bulldoze them again. Every round costs you double their last price and costs them their spot; the only party guaranteed to profit is Square Town, which is the oldest rule in real estate.

## FAQ

### Is bulldozing really anonymous?
Yes. The request carries no URL, no email and no name; Stripe knows who paid (that's how card payments work), but the wall, the feed, the victim's email and the API all say "somebody".

### Can the bulldozed owner come back?
Instantly, for free — the lot reverts to a normal empty cell and their eviction email links straight to it. Bulldozing buys an absence, not a permanent one.

### Does bulldozing raise the square's price?
No — the opposite. An empty lot is a free claim, so the doubling ladder resets. You pay for the eviction, not the land.