As I was glancing through the Planning magazine for the month of November I came across an article about land giveaways in Kansas that I found interesting. The land giveaways strategy offers people residential lots for free. However, the people would have to move to the town and build a house. The article titled "Kansas Says:Take This Land...Please!" by Jeffrey Spivak talks about land giveaways as old strategies used by towns to attract new residents and increase their economies. More specifically, new residents translate as more customers for the downtown stores as well as more state school funding. Also, new residents create "a renewed sense of hope in small towns" that it is as important as an increase in their economies. If people already living there can not make a living, or believe that there is not a future for them in the town, they will move to the cities. If this were to happen the towns would suffer a domino effect in which some town residents would move out, and then others would follow, and so on.
The land giveaways strategy has worked for cities/towns such as Ellsworth, Marquette, and Minneapolis located close to Salina, a larger rural town. However, the strategy has not worked for other towns. One reason for that could be that those towns are located too far away from major towns or cities, and are considered towns in the middle of nowhere.
The big question for strategies such as land giveaways in the State of Kansas is whether those strategies will bring long-residents, or short-term residents. By short-term residents I mean residents that will find it hard to find a job, and make a decent living, or residents that will miss the fast-paced life in the cities. These residents will move back to the cities soon after. However, the residents that small towns in Kansas are hoping to attract are people that are tired of living in big cities, enjoy and appreciate nature and are looking for a slower pace of life.
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Source:
Jeffrey Spivak, "Kansas Says: Take This Land...Please!, American Planning Association Vol. 73, No. 10, November 2007.
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