Urban Homesteading
The United States should rekindle its homesteading program.
America has good, hard-working citizens – teachers, law-enforcement and military personnel, and many other dedicated community servants – who cannot afford to own a piece of ground in the community they serve. And, just like 140 years ago, America has a lot of empty land where those people could stake a claim and become stakeholders in the American dream. It would cost Government nothing, but it would benefit the country significantly.
I’m not talking about 40 or 160 acres per homesteader. Society has moved away from the agrarian lifestyle that required so much land for each family. Instead, these good people and good families need a quarter-acre in a nice development. That would be plenty to give them a leg up in obtaining manageable financing that they could meet with the meager salaries that accompany their great service to society.
For those of you familiar with St. George, for example, you can picture the vast, empty space surrounding the community. Unless adequately provisioned and somewhat experienced, a person could get into real trouble walking half-an-hour outside town in about any direction. The community is an island in the middle of millions of acres of sagebrush and coyotes. But, the building lots on that island start around $80,000.
The problem is that the surrounding lands are owned by the United States. In 1976, the United States broke its promise to Utah that it would sell the public lands in the State (thereby putting the land on the tax rolls to help support public education) and that it would give Utah 5% of the proceeds.
Some of the federal land, of course, will never be sold, no matter what. That’s the way it goes. But, the land surrounding the towns, choking the towns, should be released. It should be sold with provisions that a specified fraction of the lots be set aside for homesteaders. We could define the criteria, the selection process and all the other details. The first step, though, is to reach a willingness – a willingness to honor promises made at statehood and a willingness to help these good Americans own a piece of available land.
America has good, hard-working citizens – teachers, law-enforcement and military personnel, and many other dedicated community servants – who cannot afford to own a piece of ground in the community they serve. And, just like 140 years ago, America has a lot of empty land where those people could stake a claim and become stakeholders in the American dream. It would cost Government nothing, but it would benefit the country significantly.
I’m not talking about 40 or 160 acres per homesteader. Society has moved away from the agrarian lifestyle that required so much land for each family. Instead, these good people and good families need a quarter-acre in a nice development. That would be plenty to give them a leg up in obtaining manageable financing that they could meet with the meager salaries that accompany their great service to society.
For those of you familiar with St. George, for example, you can picture the vast, empty space surrounding the community. Unless adequately provisioned and somewhat experienced, a person could get into real trouble walking half-an-hour outside town in about any direction. The community is an island in the middle of millions of acres of sagebrush and coyotes. But, the building lots on that island start around $80,000.
The problem is that the surrounding lands are owned by the United States. In 1976, the United States broke its promise to Utah that it would sell the public lands in the State (thereby putting the land on the tax rolls to help support public education) and that it would give Utah 5% of the proceeds.
Some of the federal land, of course, will never be sold, no matter what. That’s the way it goes. But, the land surrounding the towns, choking the towns, should be released. It should be sold with provisions that a specified fraction of the lots be set aside for homesteaders. We could define the criteria, the selection process and all the other details. The first step, though, is to reach a willingness – a willingness to honor promises made at statehood and a willingness to help these good Americans own a piece of available land.
posted by steve u. at 12/21/2005
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14 Comments:
The federal goverment (and the state and local governments as well) have no business owning huge amounts of land. I believe land should be privately owned, for instance the feds beyond what it takes to maintain defense installations, federal courthouses, and similar institutions, should be given to the states.
The states in turn should have a little more leeway to maintain national parks and the like. It shouldn't be a federal function. But much of the now state land should be judiciously sold off to private interests. Of course the majority of the land now held by the federal gov't currently is pretty worthless. But at least if the state owns it, when circumstances change this land can be used to benefit the citizens of the state rather than permantly be locked up by special interests in the federal government.
I grew up in Virginia, and the vast majority of land in the state is privately held, and I really don't recall suffering because this was the case.
While, I completely agree that the feds should give back most of the state of Utah. I am not sure that I like the idea of allowing or mandating "homesteaders" be involved. I just seems to me like another welfare program. I would need to know about this before I said absolutely yes or no, but for now I am leaning towards no (on the homestead part).
Amen and Amen. The disparity between wages and affordability of land in Washington Co. is incredible. I mean the average wage is in Wash. Co is 13 dollars and hour, yet the average townhome is over 200K. Do the math anyone who is a 1st time home buyer is pretty much SOL.
I'm a little biased here because I'm in that situation (good job, above average pay, housing very much out of reach).
"per hour" that is.
Interesting idea Steve. What is now the BLM was originally the US Land Office, who's sole purpose was to dispose unsettled lands. Either land is worthy of some other legitimate purpose, such as parks, preserves or historic sites so designated by Congress or it should be disposed of by deeding the lands to the States for disposition. Homesteading could be part of a larger state plan for disposition of such lands. Of course, unless congress forces such actions, it may require an constitutional ammendment, probably originating with the western states as a rivival of the sagebrush rebelion.
There are plenty of vacant lots and buildings in Salt Lake City that have been sitting idle for years, and in some cases decades. Some cities are now starting to condemn these kinds of spaces and either remodeling the existing structures or constructing new facilities for use as affordable housing.
Instead of pushing more people out on the public land around the fringes of our towns, why don't we look into using unproductive, blighted, or neglected private spaces within the boundaries of the towns we already have?
I would bet that bringing in more of a residential population into some of these areas would help with more problems than just the lack of affordable housing.
You make some decent points here Steve as do some others.
One thing I can't believe though is that you said that teachers work hard. I'll have to frame that comment and send it to some of the liberal education, special interest guys like Chris Mero and Chris (t) Buttars. They'll think you're turning on them and may come after you for uttering such a ridiculous statement. Saying something positive is against their personal (not public) religions.
I used to get a basketball every year for Christmas because I'd lose the one I received the year before. One Christmas there wasn't a basketball under the tree and I had to buy my own. I had that basketball for years until it wouldn't hold air anymore.
Giving away land sounds like the makings of an inner city welfare housing project. As soon as you give away land to those who can't afford it they would start complaining that they can't afford the taxes on it.
I do like the idea of releasing government lands. I even have a crazy idea for distributing the land: Put it up for sale and let the market set the price. Anything else would be cheating children and taxpayers since a portion of proceeds would go to fund education and theoretically lower the tax burden.
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The feds aren't going to simply dispose of the land in order to (1) keep a promise or (2) allow the Intermountain West to assume an equal footing with all the other states that forced disposition at this point in their history (except Texas, Tennessee and the original 13 -- which never had significant public land histories). Homesteading provides a compelling reason for disposition. Its history is one of success. For those complaining about welfare . . . why? My proposal doesn't mention anything about welfare. Instead, I suggested we should leave the details for later. For example, what if, from here forward, members of the military each were to receive 1 point in the land lottery for each year served? In terms of public good, that probably rises at least to the level of buying a basketball. I agree with the sentiment that something given is often something not appreciated and something quickly squandered. That is why I suggest homesteading, which the diaries of any homesteader will reveal was compensation for work that furthered the interests of the Nation.
I wish I could believe that there is a future to homesteading but there isn't if NAIS (National Animal Identification System) is put through. The USDA wants to tag and track all animals, births, deaths and movements even for small farmers, homesteaders and pet owners. NAIS has the potential to destroy modern homesteading and small farms. I just posted about this on my blog at:
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/2006/01/nais-marking-beasts.html
Please read that and fight against NAIS.
I've visited your Great State on two occasions and I would caution any policy that encourages developing outward before using up what's already been paid for. I live in Virginia in a county that's has more than a third of it's land owned by the Federal Government (the majority of it Coastal). I can sympathize with the impact it has on your housing cost. Ironically my locality is faced with the same challenges and I'm tasked with creating a policy around Urban Homesteading.
I came upon your site via Google while doing research on the topic of Homesteading, not much of a history of it here in my neck of the woods given that my county was established in 1634. That having been said, I did like to second what an earlier poster stated concerning using up abandoned lots in Salt Lake City before moving into the wilderness. The streets, water and sewer have already been paid for in Salt Lake. I image the taxpayer’s are currently paying to keep the abandoned buildings from burning or becoming a haven for unlawful activities. Don’t waste more tax dollars moving away from the city’s core. Reinvest and create a place desirable to all.
If you develop out in the wilderness you’ll create a need for more services and end up perpetuating the condition that already exist. Get the most out of that inner city property first so you can do like the old Scottish proverb says “Use it up, wear it out, make do or go without!”
I really like your article,(thankyou) what you said about Homesteading in Americia applies equally if not more so to Australia, here there is no really meaningfull real wage status but at the moment I would say many people are lucky to clear $500/ week and in the western suburbs of Sydney (the cheapest part of Sydney to live it cost $250 OOOish to buy a house) yet out west in new south wales there is plenty of land already quite cheap but no infrustructure for jobs. Sydney was recently announced to be the 2nd most expensive place to buy a house (more expensive then New York and London) Often when this is brought up people say move to another city, but I don't want to leave my family. With land so expensive people are forced to move into small appartment or rent yet people then keep complaining about lack of population growth.
In many places in the bush what is called on your site Homesteading hasn't taken off in the city here at all, but in country areas it might not be known as Homesteading but called way of life, for example if you are not hooked up to mains water you have no choice but to install water tanks and if you are in a drought wich we are most of the time you must conserve water.
While I don't like the idea of giving land or lotterey points to people for millitary service I do think there should be a system like that maybe for people who invest a decent amount of time and money into learning the skills to be successfull for instance attending a permaculture workshop could earn you points or donating time to a charity that helps you bennifit the community.
Urban Homesteading is lost forever, The wealthy few and those who are in positions of power will never allow it because they could'nt benefit from it. The funny thing is that most of them got started from their greedy forefathers who homesteaded, Dont you think we should all have the same chance ??
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