Five places where land is free!(Free land Anyone?)

In the spirit of settling the wild, wild West, some communities are giving away free land lots. What's the catch? You have to agree to build a house (or park a mobile home) and live in it. For the most part, the places doing this are rural communities without much in the way of work opportunities. But there are definitely some upsides and we can think of worse places to wait out the recession than near a mountain stream in Alaska. Besides, doesn't the whole world work virtually now, or is that just my hemisphere?

The concept is certainly not new. Homesteading incentives dating from 1862 helped settle the far reaches of the country. And as population density increased, communities thrived. Some communities today simply need more people. Land, they've got plenty of, so why not give it away? People pay taxes and that allows schools to stay open, roads to be built, public services to be paid for.

What are you likely to get? A few years ago, the Alaskan town of Anderson -- smack in the state's interior, loaded with spruce trees and views of the Northern lights and Mount McKinley -- put 26 plots of land up for grabs. The town of 300 has no gas station, no grocery store and no traffic lights. It also pays no property taxes, no state income taxes, has no crime and no traffic. Summers are gorgeous with temperatures reaching 90. Winters, well, winters are a different story; the weather can get to minus 60.

The federal government no longer gives away free land (it sells it at fair market value), so if you get something in the mail about the U.S. government's land giveaways, it's a scam. But small communities in many states including Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska.....

Was it just me, or did the tone of the article seem a bit snarky? Or actually a lot snarky?

I think the requirement in Alaska, that you have to have lived in the state for at least a year before getting land in the town, makes perfect sense. I would think that moving into a small, remote interior town to spend one's first Alaskan winter might not be the best idea in the world.

You would be right - on the unbelievable.

I grabbed this off a real estate site talking about Anderson AK. (Been there, ain't going back.)

"Was in Anderson today, took a few photos of two of the four houses there in the giveaway land deal. They are foreclosing on about 18 of the 26 some odd lots that they gave away.

One of the houses if for sale, the roads are pretty wide though the subdivision which is south of the main town and is more than likely an attempt to make the town look better in the longer run. The main town has streets, but they are very narrow, and there is a lot of abandon houses there that are just falling apart. If they ever closed Clear AFB, the place would just dry up and go away...

One guy is building a "Bed and Breakfast" at the very end of the road, looks like it will be a really nice place when it is done, but there is nothing there to draw people there. The town is about ten miles back off the main Parks Hwy, and other than the Anderson Blue Grass Festival, the other 362 days of the year, it is pretty dead.... They mean well, and are trying, but nothing there is able to draw people like Denali National Park does, or even just a restaurant along the Parks highway has more drawing appeal...."

Clear AFB (near Anderson) is the home of a BMEWS radar - transmit output is in the multi-megawatt range.

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