Land Grab

Okay, since the actual story in USA Today online is kinda long, allow me to summarize it for you.
There are little towns in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas that are so desperate for newcomers that the townships are giving away free land to anyone who wants to move there and build a house. No, this is not the 1840's, and we're not talking about homesteading on the hostile frontier. Free land in a small town in the heartland of America.

If you're from California, like me, you probably find this a little hard to believe. How is it possible that an empty lot the size of a postage stamp can fetch a quarter million or more where we live, but that the good folks of Cornstalk, Kansas are willing to give it away for nothing? Is California really that much better a place to live? If building costs are somewhere around $40 per square foot, that means that in Kansas I could build myself a brand-new, 4000-sq. ft. home for under two hundred grand. In my neck of the woods such a place would cost closer to $750,000, and in some parts of California the figure would be well over a million bucks.

So why don't I stop my bitching and start packing?

As a Californian, places like Kansas, though technically I do know that they exist, don't quite seem real. Sure, I've seen Field of Dreams. I do know what corn looks like. But I can't realistically imagine myself living in such a place. It would be easier for me to imagine living in Paris, or Berlin, or Rome than in the rural parts of the U.S. interior.

I guess I'm not the only person who feels that way, judging by the swelling population of all the metropolitan areas of the West Coast and the shrinking stats of the heartland states. It does strike me as odd that folks out here in California are lining up to pay such outrageous prices for housing when such inexpensive alternatives are available. Sure there are more jobs. Yes, wages are higher. The weather is better. There's more to do. But still...free land? C'mon people, what are we waiting for?