During the Great Depression, when banks foreclosed on farms, neighbors often showed up at the auctions together.
They’d bid only a few cents, and return the land to the family that lost it. Sometimes a noose hung nearby as a warning to outsiders not to profit from someone else’s ruin.
It was rough, but it worked, communities protected each other when the system wouldn’t.
If a collapse like that happened today, do you think people would still stand together or has that kind of solidarity disappeared? Could it happen again?
This is being done today. In my area. But it produces the opposite results you may seek.
There is a community near me. Very insular. It hits the national news every so often, but is always top of mind in my region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Square%2C_New_York
You may have heard of the issues with the East Ramapo school district. I’ll let others fill in those stories. Or you can search area news articles for the past 20 years.
My story goes like this: a community member stopped paying taxes. The property goes for auction. A neighbor buys for pennies because there is only one bidder. The bidder moves into the property and stops paying taxes on his first home. That goes to auction and the first party buys for pennies. And it goes around the entire community. Endlessly. Perfectly legal tax evasion.
One day, a developer scans the foreclosure pages and sees a property for sale. Except he doesn’t know the unwritten rules. So he purchases the place for a song. The community leaves some clear messages that he needs to walk away. He doesn’t get the hint.
One peaceful night, the 911 switchboard lights up. There are shootouts, break-ins, fires, domestic disturbances all over the area. But all are nowhere near the property.
With every first responder in the area tied up, the community got to work demolishing the home - by hand. They took that place apart with crowbars and handsaws in a few hours.
There were no witnesses.
And so the developer walked away. The situation continues to this day. Nearby folks trying to get a rational price to sell their home are assured by a visitor that there will be precisely ONE offer - that they should not refuse.
Lockstep communities are not always a good thing.
I don’t see that working today.
If it is a house, get good insurance on it that will pay out on the cost of the structure. If they demolish the house, keep the land undeveloped and invest the insurance payout rather than rebuild. Taxes will be low because the land will have dropped in price thanks to the local community. Continue as the town has to raise taxes because they are destroying rateable properties and insurance rates rise due to the increased likelihood of property damage. Hope for either pushing the locals out or getting a municipal bankruptcy to put the town under state control.
I mean that in the good kind of way, the kind that still believes people can pull together when things fall apart.
I agree. But the line can be difficult to see. Pulling together should be on the lookout for excluding others.
To me the situation you’re describing and the OP situation seem pretty similar; using threats to overrule the established system of property rights. But of course that system is how society decides what new people can move in, and something has to decide that.