Also, I just want to clarify upon one thing. The goal of a free city project wouldn’t be to secede right away. It would mainly be an educational project, gathering a gaggle of Austrians together in one place, and using our combined energies to accelerate the pace of education regarding economics and libertarian philosophy in that city, creating a stronghold for those ideas and an educated citizenry to uphold them. Entrepreneurs would deliver new means of private security and law services. Naturally, some among us would want to take control of local politics, and if we had the numbers, we could do just that. To the furthest extent possible, we would repeal local taxes, laws, and regulations. The size of the city government would be downsized to just a handful of people, possibly even volunteers, running the city in a nominal role. The police forces would be phased out and competition in the form of private security would be encouraged and legalized. All of the city run courts would be either closed or privatized, with private arbitration services recommended as the preferred solution to disputes. Perhaps, in order to keep up the charade that the city government is still running things, and as to not be a threat to the federal government, one city court could still be operated, albeit by volunteers, and funded by charity. The ideal that we would work towards is the Pennsylvania colony shortly after its founding, where while it did have a government building, it wasn’t staffed most of the year, and they for all practical purposes had anarchy.
If that can be accomplished, and then one day, whether by crisis or circumstance, the opportunity for secession arises, then the city secedes.
I’ve been to Alabama, and I’ve been to New Hampshire. Just from a superficial perspective, I’d rather live in NH any day. Someday, either the FSP, or the 2nd Vermont Republic, as soon as the house is payed off.
That’s basically the reason why no one thinks about invading : difficult to hold, difficult to get, and an asset even if independent (free trade and all).
How does Texas sound? afaik they have no corporation tax, fairly varied weather zones, good gun laws (which would make PDAs easier to organise), and are net exporters of oil.
Because as Joseph said, secession doesn’t just happen overnight, you need to build up businesses that provide alternatives to government services, and only then secede when the opportune time comes (e.g. when the State goes bankrupt, or during the next recession, or since they may coincide, during both). Otherwise your anarchy will just start up as chaos, and how many people will you win over to the cause then?
I don’t think you can really select an area until there is some idea of how many people are interested and obtain input from the interested parties. If it is not a lot of people Keene might make sense. If there are many people interested somewhere else might make more sense.