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Original post by kryotech As for the crime and disease........how likely is it for disease to spread?

Very likely.

Why move them to a new town? Just point them to where the day laborers find work. They do this enough times, saveing thier money, without useing these earnings to feed destructive vices. And they will eventualy have enough to get a 'by the week' hotel room or even an efficientcy appartment. A honest address from which they can obtain gainfull employment. Sure day labor sucks, but its been getting capable homeless workers off the streets and back into productive society for decades.

Legality and crime are advanced problems, let's go back to basics. You can build a town around farmers who feed the community around them, but then you would be living like in the middle ages. You need to sell your services/produce to the outside world if you want electricity, water, medicine and all that. You need skilled labour and equipment(=money) for that. I doubt you can do it with a bunch of homeless people.

Well, it already exists (well, sort of) in Europe.

Ever hear of gipsies? They often build themselves small "towns" (3-5 families) in forests. Maybe one or two of them have some seasonal jobs or these few are begging, the rest of them life off the land in a way... It is illegal of course.

Or are we talking about the USA again?

Grimunlock, I was focusing on the job and money, not the physical development of town.

This is the article I'm talking about.

anyway, the main reason why a town become abandoned is because lack of job, to get the ball rolling again, we must create jobs there. the rest came by itself.

i think i know what you're thinking, but there has to be mass job first. just like mining town in the old days. the mining (mass job) has to come first, the town will come by itself. just like coal town. just like detroit. just like any other town being abandoned because lack of job. you can't create a town with just basic shop / restaurant / barber and expect they to trade / barter with each other. mass job have to come first.

at least that is my opinion, as i'm not a professional town planner.

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Original post by isometrixk 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.

sounds like the typical modern city, doesn't it? :)

It's not creating a town but I think the closest thing to what you're looking for is a Worker cooperative.

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In response to the economic crisis in Argentina, many Argentinian workers occupied the premises of bankrupt businesses and began to run them as worker-owned cooperatives. As of 2005, there were roughly 200 worker-owned businesses in Argentina, most of which were started in response to this crisis. The documentary film The Take is the best-known document in English about this phenomenon.

I'm not sure about North-America, but from what I understand from what went on with Argentina's economic crisis, a number of laws were drafted surrounding such co-op industries that considers both that people were making an effort to sustain themselves and that there are issues surrounding ownership of property. I guess it comes down to a squatter's rights sort of thing where the squatters are making an active attempt to sustain themselves.

So, with that in mind, I would say yes, forming a town using a similar ideal should be possible. But I would want to ensure that one member of that town is an accomplished lawyer or at least have someone who knows a good lawyer that'll back them up. And even then, you'll need some very determined people.

I think it's possible, and has been done before to some extent. What I don't know, is what message does it pass, not for the desperate people that would do such a thing, but for all the rest of us, like: "you have built such an ugly and unfair society that we don't have any other ways to survive than to occupy a ghost town". But, when everything else fails...can you blame them for entertaining the thought?

It's really depressing to think how much talent and skills are lost every day because the way we have built this society, they don't find any channels to shine.

If they are on the street then they are on the street for a reason. There is always a cause. You're trying to treat the symptoms instead of the causes.

If someone is on the street because they have a mental illness (extremely likely) then putting them in a house and giving them a job isn't going to suddenly make them wonderful, upstanding, productive members of society. They are still ill and won't be able to take care of their house or hold the job. What they need is professional medical attention, not their own city.

If someone is on the street due to a distinct lack of respect for society, laziness, or criminal inclinations, then they will trash the house and screw the job. I don't know what it takes to get someone out of that state of mind, but there's plenty of evidence that throwing things at them doesn't help.

If someone is on the street because of bad luck, there are lots of support services out there for them which will work much better than trying to start up a new city.

Whatever the reason, most of the homeless will only cause additional problems for the other homeless. Not only that, but the entire town will be a massive target for other crime sources. What you're suggesting is only a tiny step away from forming a gang. You can bet your ass that gangs would set up shop and begin recruiting like crazy as soon as the word got out that a lot of homeless people were 'working'.

In the United States, to start a town one must amass a somewhat ample following and have a decent reason to start the town. One must then approach the state legislature and they will vote on whether or not to issue your town a charter for incorporation to be recognized by the state. If your town grows, they will build schools, post offices, highways, and government offices. Don't expect help with the finances of the city, until it grows enough for taxes to mean anything you will need to dish out some serious dough for roads, bridges, schools, etc.