i was stuck in a train station for 2 days thanks to weather. seeing all manners of homeless people and other stranded folks, i started wondering. for the sake of this thread, ignore homeless "crackheads" or vagabonds.

think of all homeless shelters out there. now, a LOT of them are full of fully capable people whose lives have just thrown bad luck at them. you could walk into a lot of these shelters and find a lot of people looking for solid work, but unable to get a job, and thus unable to ever get a place to live. there's literally thousands of these. lots and lots of people.

lets say somehow you organized 500 homeless people. men, women, all who are down on their luck, broke, jobless... but people who CAN actually work and have worked in the past.

is it entirely feasible for these people to just go somewhere, like say Montana, and start up a new town? now, that's a bit difficult, because it requires actually building a town. but what about a place like this:

What the hell happened to Cairo, Illinois?

There's a lot of "Ghost Towns" throughout the US. What if 500 people just 'moved into' one of these towns and literally started working it? Would this even be possible? Or legal? I mean, I'm sure some expert coordinator could feasibly get 500 unfortunate people there and try and create jobs for everyone. But would it be legal?

Like, could 10 of them literally walk into an abandoned room and declare it "City Hall", and volunteer to be in charge... then you have other people who can work some small shops, food joints, etc...

basically, point of my question is, if somehow all of these homeless+capable people were able to unite and coordinate together, could they LEGALLY create a town for themselves, and engage in commerce, and be recognized?

if the answer is NO to legally creating a town...

... what if some upstart company built a big Mall.. and the mall basically had a few clothing stores, a couple food shops, a grocery, a doctors office.. basically a business for each of the 'common needs'.

then you create some housing connected to the mall. maybe an apartment building, or even a couple of cheap dormitory-styled housing complexes.

then you basically invite homeless+capable people to MOVE IN. they all get to work somewhere in this "mall", which is basically like a mini-town. everyone works together to create a contained little ecosystem. having a job here allows them to live in the apartment / dorms.

you could basically start popping up these "mini-town" malls all over the place. and instead of HOMELESS shelter, they become HOME shelters.

again, any less/more feasible, or legal?

The Walt Disney company created a new town from scratch in Florida around ten years ago. The town was recently in the national news for it's first murder.

Ghost towns are created when the local economy dries up and the people move away. For example, ghost towns out here in the west are usually near an abandoned mine.

Theoretically it's possible. Not likely though. The wealth of said town would only be wealth that already existed from the citizens. Unless they bring in new wealth or create resources, they will only ever be bartering eachother for supplies. That's why most towns started off the highway. Gas station sells gas to traveller, then restaurant opens, then store opens for the people working at the restaurant, then apartments open for people working at the restaurant and store, etc. etc. The wealth to create the infrastructure is coming from the travellers to the gas station, not the town itself.

Pragmatically, your take on the homeless is way off. From my personal experience, the vast majority of people that are homeless are there by choice. I've done a lot of volunteering and speaking with the homeless and most of them are dealing with either a mental illness, major depression, substance/alcohol abuse, social issues, and probably a combination of all. With the exception of one person I've met, they all acknowledged they were not ready to better their situation and were not actively trying to seek for stability. Of the people down on their luck that I met, they only stay that way for a short while. There are a lot of programs for people who want to be self-sufficient but had a stroke of bad luck.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/02/us/mental-illness-cited-among-many-homeless.html

I'm not sure about the actual logistics of getting something like this work, but there are a few potential hurdles before even getting started.

For one, you have to acquire the land (obviously) - it is owned by someone and if it is worth anything, they will probably want money for it. Furthermore, for "ghost towns", I imagine the title work could be a mess (i.e. costly) - streets are probably still owned by the county or have easements for right-of-way, recorded and prescriptive utility rights and easements such as for sewer, there may be interests in real property by people long dead, etc. Be prepared to hire a lawyer or two and some surveyors, and get in good with whatever state/county government you need to schmooze.

Also, you would have to pay taxes to, at least, the state and feds. The state will undoubtedly have regulations about what is needed to become an incorporated entity. I've heard (but I have no idea if this is true) that, in my neck of the woods, you need at least a fire fighting facility to become an incorporated village.

In other words, these homeless people are going to need a generous financial benefactor to get the ball rolling.

create a town from scratch takes a lot of money, and only goverment are capable of doing this.

if you mean about occupying a ghost town to resurrect it, the hardest part is getting / creating a job there. it's a vicious cycle.

a) you want to open a restaurant, but you want to serve to who?
b) you open a grocery store, you want to sell to who?
c) you refurbish abandon apartment for rental, you want to rent to who?

homeless can go there, but without job, how do they pay?

the main problem, for capable homeless, is lack of work. it is known that a lot of factory moves to china/india/indonesia.

you heard how many billions being pumped to save companies in order to save jobs (although to save ceo's or to save the ordinary guy's is a debate in itself).

in other word, you need to create jobs, and that require a lot of money. and to be frank, as far as US goes, it a losing battle. globalization means production are now done in cheaper country. vfx companies are dropping like flies. the smart ones are opening branches in cheaper country. they say they want to grow big, the the truth is that they want to get the same job done with less pay. if the company can hire and Indian (as an example, didn't mean to be racist or anything) for 1/5 the salary, it equal one less American that they have to hire at full price. it will come to a point where the offshore base will do the work, while the skeleton crew based in the US will secure jobs and clients.

you're talking about creating town? heck, goverments are trying to save current town - just search some article about bonuses goverment willing to give to companies bringing in jobs to their town / city. I saw one on Yahoo last week i think.

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Original post by FableFox create a town from scratch takes a lot of money, and only goverment are capable of doing this. if you mean about occupying a ghost town to resurrect it, the hardest part is getting / creating a job there. it's a vicious cycle. a) you want to open a restaurant, but you want to serve to who? b) you open a grocery store, you want to sell to who? c) you refurbish abandon apartment for rental, you want to rent to who? homeless can go there, but without job, how do they pay? the main problem, for capable homeless, is lack of work. it is known that a lot of factory moves to china/india/indonesia.

the homeless ARE the town. they ARE the workers for the jobs. i'm not saying just make a new town, and invite some homeless people to hang out.

literally, create a bunch of establishments that serve common needs (food, clothing, utilities, entertainment, health) and staff them COMPLETELY with jobless/homeless folks. they become the workers and the town itself.

the goal wouldn't be to become millionaires. it would be acknowledging that there's a giant force of people, who are largely uncoordinated, who could all just work together to "get by" and live together. by working, each person is paying for their own housing in this community.

it doesn't have to be wildly profitable. just self-sustaining. lets say you have 20 homeless/jobless guys who used to work farms, before finding themselves laid off. they could work a small farm. create raw produce. then you have some cooks and servers run a restaurant that feeds the community. you get some other guys who enjoy just hanging around a movie theater, they run that. former tax specialists and people like that can run those specialty establishments, because everyone will need them.

also, i agree INHABITING a ghost town would be difficult because of the due process of legalities.

sprouting up a new town, 1800s style, would also probably be very unlikely.

that's why the "mini-town" mall idea I think could really work. one central apartment/dormitory styled housing area for the community. a finite amount of shops & businesses that are run by these former jobless people.

the idea would be that these communities cant really grow, because making it scalable is tough, and then at that point, you're back to the 'real world' trying to find more jobs in a small environment.

the idea would be creating clusters of these mini-towns. hell, if i was a chef and was laid off and had ZERO alternatives or options, and knew there was a mini-community being built, i'd totally opt to live there and work for it.

This would simply never work - legally or logically.

Logically I look at it this way...you wish to stick homeless people into a small, self sustaining community. If the community is dense enough, there will be rapid spread of diseases and illnesses. Within time, every individual will have an std or hiv. Fights would constantly break out, crime would be high, and drug traffic would be tremendous. Think about it.

Although completely different, this reminds me of the movie Defiance -- Jewish runaways from camps and raided homes forms a community in the woods hidden from Nazi soldiers. Great movie.

Edit: In no way am I relating Jews to homeless people. Just the starting of an illegal community completely started by strangers is similar.

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Original post by Grimunlock also, i agree INHABITING a ghost town would be difficult because of the due process of legalities. sprouting up a new town, 1800s style, would also probably be very unlikely. that's why the "mini-town" mall idea I think could really work. one central apartment/dormitory styled housing area for the community. a finite amount of shops & businesses that are run by these former jobless people. the idea would be that these communities cant really grow, because making it scalable is tough, and then at that point, you're back to the 'real world' trying to find more jobs in a small environment. the idea would be creating clusters of these mini-towns. hell, if i was a chef and was laid off and had ZERO alternatives or options, and knew there was a mini-community being built, i'd totally opt to live there and work for it.

A mall near a highway could sprout into a mini town. If it's a busy highway, the mall could generate enough money and that would sprout into the other things.

As for the crime and disease........how likely is it for disease to spread? As for crime.......every town has some degree of crime. That's why there needs to be a police force there.