“I've long believed that one of the mainsprings of our own liberty has been the widespread ownership of property among our people and the expectation that anyone's child, even from the humblest of families, could grow up to own a business or a corporation. Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shop owners, and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, property owning citizens—a mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine” — Ronald Reagan,

Much like the homestead of the mid 1800s the idea here is to get people to move to rural communities. The incentive for this would be building mid density homes in rural towns and giving these homes to people who move to this towns and live there for 7 years. The idea is people from overcrowded and expensive cities like New York, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, etc. would move to rural communities to raise families and start business. This would serve multiple purposes.

The land value in small towns is by orders of magnitude cheaper than in large cities so any federal program to build housing, which is desperately needed, would have greater economic returns in these rural towns. Increase nationwide housing stocks would also decrease rent in larger communities, giving an incentive for the people in larger communities to support this program. By giving these homes away after seven years of occupation, the new resident immediately gets a jumpstart in life with an assets that brings value to themselves as well as the local community.

This increase in population in our small communities will increase the economic dynamism of our small towns, and providing a diversify tax base, which will offset the current system, where land owning farmers and ranchers carry most of the local tax burden. Having more people in a community means having the population to sustain a hospital or clinic, midsize schools, restaurants, machine shops, and a whole host of other small businesses that the communities would naturally provide once the people are there to service the demand.

The houses are built as mid density homes with communal spaces to incentivize a sense of community, like homes were made prior to the era of suburbs. Building homes in this manner also reduces cost as you will not be requiring as much land and the small communities would be far easier to navigate without the need of cars. this promotes more foot traffic for small businesses, which naturally brings about more personal communication, creating an even greater sense of community.

This combined with the greenhouse program, providing the community with a baseline economic foundation, as well as locally sourced and diverse food would go a long way to increasing the health, economy and social connections