After a little discussion that began on a r/AbandonedPorn post of a beautiful drug store building, I started playing with the idea of an Urban Colony. Put simply, this is an idea about an organization that would reintroduce a number of people to a given location all around the same time with plans in place for service needs to be met (grocery & drug stores, doctors, some form of school, fire & police protection). Essentially, beginning a colony on top of the bones of an abandoned/ vacant community. The goal being to make productive again places where resources currently exist but without new input will waste away - and I do count abandoned buildings as resources.

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1. First off, what's really abandoned? For the sake of this post let's say abandoned doesn't mean absolutely nobody, simply that a large portion of the population has left a neighborhood/ town/ city.
2. Second, the issue of not having customers for people who are reopening businesses (like the drug store) came up. So the reintroduction of people would need to be done around the same time - say within a 2-3 month window - and it would need to be a large enough number of people to support these reopening businesses, let's say at least 100 people of varied ages.
3. Three, why would these people want to move to a place everyone else has left? Well, why did people in the east move out west in the USA during expansion? Why did people from southeast Asia take long voyages to explore and start lives on islands throughout the Pacific? Because there are people looking to start better lives and they're not content or are unhappy where they are. Some people just love the idea of starting new somewhere and would take that leap.
4. Where would this happen? I can imagine this happening anywhere the bones exist - abandoned buildings, infrastructure, etc - but the people have left. It could happen adjacent to large cities encompassing a neighborhood/intersection of just 3-4 blocks. Or it could happen happen amidst struggling small cities/ large towns with vacancy spread out around the municipality limits. I imagine this would only really work in places with a historical layout, where people wouldn't **need** a car to get around from the home to necessities. I can't imagine it happening in an empty subdivision that's been shoehorned into an old muni. It would need to be a mixed-use area with as many people as possible living beside/ above/ in the places they'll be working and frequenting.

Honestly I just liked the idea of a discussion about this. You do have to make some assumptions for this to be discussed. Such as abandoned buildings being a resource that're worth recovering. If you have any thoughts throw them out here. And thanks to everyone who makes this sub something I love following along with.