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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

This is another article about the desperation moves of citizens of small 
towns to keep their towns from dying. The national migration to the 
Sunbelt, the growing size of agriculture and the allure of bright lights to 
young people continues unabated. I muse that some pretty good-sized areas 
of our country will become virtually unpopulated.

Empty House on the Prairie
By BOB GREENE

Published: March 2, 2005

Chicago

IF you and your family would like to move to Crosby, N.D., not only will 
the town give you a free plot of land on which to build your house, they'll 
also throw in a free membership to the Crosby Country Club.

If you and your family would like to move to Ellsworth, Kan., not only will 
the town give you free land, they'll also give you thousands of dollars 
toward a down payment on the house you build if you have children who will 
attend the public school.
        
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If you and your family would like to move to Plainville, Kan., not only 
will the town give you free land, they will also drastically reduce the 
property tax on your house for 10 years, and the first-year tax rate will 
be zero percent.

The logical question, upon hearing all of this, is the one I presented to 
Plainville's mayor, Glenn Sears:

What's the catch?

Mr. Sears paused for a good seven seconds before answering, as if the 
question itself did not make sense. Then he said, "There is no catch."

But there is a requirement: that you pack up your life as you now know it, 
and start again in Crosby (population 1,100) or Ellsworth (population 
2,500) or Plainville (population 2,000). The free-land offer is the result 
of one of the most significant American stories of the last century, one 
that has received sporadic attention because it has unfolded so gradually: 
the inexorable population flow out of rural areas, toward larger cities.

The tiny towns in the Great Plains and upper Midwest don't want to die. 
They are trying to keep their young people from departing, to beckon home 
those who have left, and - more and more - to think of ways to entice 
outsiders to come and build and stay. Thus, proposed tax breaks in Iowa; 
loans in Nebraska; land giveaways in Kansas and elsewhere.

And although word of these lures is getting out, no one truly knows whether 
any of it will work. In northwestern North Dakota, they think there is no 
option but to try: Steve Slocum, of the area's development alliance, said, 
"You don't get any pheasants if you don't shoot your gun."

There may be an inherent problem in the approach: when something is free, 
it appears to have no value. Playing hard to get has long been more 
effective than throwing yourself at someone. The jaded big-city negotiating 
line is: "Desperation is the worst cologne."

They're not buying that in the towns giving away the land. When I suggested 
that the towns might do better by taking the opposite psychological 
direction - charging hefty initiation fees for the pleasure of living in a 
quiet, safe, low-stress environment - Anita Hoffhines, head of the effort 
in Ellsworth County, said, "We've tried coy long enough."

Yet there does seem to be a danger that, by all but begging outsiders to 
come, the rural communities will send a false and counterproductive 
message: that small-town life is so undesirable that the only way to keep 
people is to chain them down (or bribe them). It might be better to explain 
to the world exactly why a placid way of life is preferable to urban 
cacophony and chaos - and inform the outsiders that this kind of living is 
so valuable, they're going to have to pay a little extra for the privilege 
of moving in. Make what's inside the tent seem irresistible - a lesson that 
should have been learned on the midways of every county fair there ever was.

Not that the small towns aren't trying to spell out their qualities. 
They're doing it earnestly (Lincoln, Kan.: "The Size of a Dime With the 
Heart of a Dollar"); with a wink (northwestern North Dakota: "We have four 
distinct seasons - three are absolutely beautiful, one is very distinct"); 
with exuberant punctuation (Atwood, Kan.: "Where else can you enjoy a cup 
of coffee at the local cafe, and everyone there is your friend?!!!!!").

In some of these towns, a commute to work is four minutes; crime is all but 
nonexistent; at night you half-believe you can look toward the soundless 
sky and see the outskirts of heaven. And isolation, in our age of 500 
channels, of easy Internet access and e-mail, does not mean the same thing 
it did to generations past.

So if the giveaway programs fail to bring about a new land rush, maybe it 
will be no one's fault. The United States is no longer quite so young a 
country; we've been here a while, and nations, like people, get set in 
their ways. If the great urban-rural population divide stays the way it is, 
it may be because we all have chosen to live this way, and are not about to 
change.

With that in mind, I asked Nita Basgall, the city clerk of Plainville, to 
consider what she would do if the invitation was reversed: if, say, New 
York City were to offer free plots of land in Midtown Manhattan. Her 
response was courteous and it was instant: "No, thank you."

Bob Greene is the author of "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North 
Platte Canteen" and, most recently, "Fraternity: A Journey in Search of 
Five Presidents."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/opinion/02greene.html