Margo first uses the phrase “paper towns” while looking out at Orlando from the top of the SunTrust Building with Quentin. By “paper towns” she means towns that have no real purpose, that are filled with people who go about their lives thinking only of the future, rather than the present. She can no longer bear to live in a paper town, and so she flees to New York. As Quentin searches for Margo, “paper towns” becomes a motif. Quentin thinks that “paper towns” also refers to abandoned subdivisions, or pseudovisions, and believing that Margo might be staying in one of these towns, goes searching for her.

He also learns that “paper towns” are fictional towns that are used for marketing purposes by map makers. They are placed on maps to protect against plagiarism. One such town, Agloe, has a general store named after it, making it a physical place. Agloe is where Margo hides until she leaves for New York; she jokes that it is a “paper town for a paper girl” (293). Earlier, she had written on a wall at the strip mall: “you will go to the paper towns and you will never come back” (149). In this sense, one is a “paper person” for as long as one believes oneself to be fake, a construction.