Revitalization. Prosperity. Innovation.
These are all words some policy groups have used to describe a concept they’re calling “Freedom Cities” — an idea that proposes to create new urban districts on underutilized public lands. The idea, in concept, is that the areas would allow for accelerated and affordable housing, as well as advancements in manufacturing, energy and technology, without traditional regulations. Several groups have identified lands outside of Bend and Redmond as key areas for these new cities, considering the region’s proximity to jobs and established infrastructure, and its ongoing housing affordability issues.
In May 2023, President Donald Trump presented a speech he called, “Quantum Leap,” proposing the creation of up to 10 Freedom Cities on federal lands.
“These Freedom Cities will reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hard-working families, a new shot at homeownership and, in fact, the American dream,” he said in the video.
Since then, several think-tanks and organizations have begun working to identify where these cities might be located, identifying several parcels of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land outside of Bend and Redmond.
One of the key components of these cities is streamlining middle-class housing by doing away with certain federal, state and city regulations that groups say, “stifle new construction.” Proponents of Freedom Cities say the goal would be to waive or streamline National Environmental Policy Act reviews, fast-track permits and push legislation that would offer regulatory opt-out mechanisms and pro-growth building codes.
Organizations like Charter Cities, a nonprofit building the ecosystem for cities that are granted special jurisdiction to create a new governance system, see these less-regulated cities as a way to promote modern manufacturing and technological innovation, supporting advancements in artificial intelligence and biotech research, and “reestablishing the U.S. as a global leader in critical industries.”
With mounting national conversations about the sale of public lands, and key areas targeted for development in Central Oregon, organizations, officials and residents are grappling with what it would mean to sell formerly protected lands to the highest bidder.
Federal Land Sales
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman, introduced an amendment in early June to the Republican budget bill, called the “Big Beautiful Bill.” According to reporting from “The New York Times,” the proposal would require the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to identify and sell millions of acres of public lands across 11 Western states.
Eligible states for this proposal would include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
Lee said on social media that the move would help promote more housing development by “unlocking underutilized lands.”
On the social media platform X, Lee said the bill, “does not authorize the sale of national parks, monuments or wilderness.” Instead, he said, it “identifies unused, garden-variety federal parcels for potential disposal.” The goal, he says on social media, is to help American families afford a home.
“In this day and age, we struggle at the local level to fund the infrastructure needed to build out new neighborhoods. It’s really unrealistic to think that you could build a whole new city from scratch out in the middle of nowhere without a massive infusion of infrastructure dollars.” —Phil Chang
However, a statement from the Senate Committee on the Budget alleged that several amendments to the bill, including Lee’s public land sale mandate, did not follow Senate budget rules. The statement cited the Byrd Rule, which ensures that reconciliation bills remain focused on fiscal issues.
On Monday, Lee posted on X that he’s doing everything he can to support the president and move the bill forward.
“Stay tuned. We’re just getting started,” he wrote.
Amid these discussions, the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank, started looking at the feasibility of Freedom Cities and the disposal of other BLM land for the purpose of building housing.
In its research, AEI identified several parcels of BLM land — some 213,000 acres — in proximity to housing, amenities, water sources and other points of infrastructure. It calls the proposal, “Homesteading 2.0,” which consists of two parts, both of which could apply to Bend.
One of the ideas, dubbed “Home Sweet Home,” identifies BLM land that could be sold to developers to build housing immediately — land that’s immediately adjacent to already-established housing and infrastructure, according to Arthur Gailes, manager of housing supply initiatives with AEI.
The other proposal, Freedom Cities, is a longer-term concept that looks at lands farther out from established cities.
According to Arthur, the studies eliminate conservation areas and protected federal land such as national parks, monuments and Native American reservations, from its consideration.
“For Freedom Cities, we pencil out areas where you can build a big enough block that it would actually form a viable city, and we rank those cities by their proximity to jobs, the demand in the metro and general housing market indicators. Bend, in particular, is a pretty exciting source for a lot of this,” Gailes told the Source.
“In our work, we highlight the land that is most ripe for development… Bend makes a good site for a lot of these areas, particularly because, like a lot of the western half of the United States, the affordability of its housing supply relative to its income has gotten particularly distorted over the past 10 years.”
While it isn’t completely clear how governance would work within these cities, the cities could be overseen by a federal board, according to memos from various groups proposing these cities.
One of the areas identified in AEI’s report is roughly a two-mile drive from Bend, with a potential for 30,000 homes, Gailes said, utilizing the land that’s outside of Bend’s limits that typically can’t accommodate growth due to certain land use and wildlife habitat protections.
Environmental Impacts
The various proposals sparked the attention of Central Oregon LandWatch, a local environmental watchdog, which sees such campaigns as a direct threat to Oregon’s statewide land-use planning system.
“As an organization that advocates for public lands protections, we are deeply concerned by the current attempts by this Congress and administration to sell off public lands,” COLW Executive Director Ben Gordon told the Source.
In June, COLW created an analysis of the lands AEI identified near Bend and Redmond, analyzing their overlap with emergency services, infrastructure and wildlife habitats. COLW’s analysis aimed to demonstrate what potential resource and land-use planning conflicts the Freedom Cities campaign would present.
According to Gordon, the impacts to wildlife in the proposed locations in Central Oregon are “striking,” with a large percentage of the lands falling within elk, mule deer and sage grouse habitats and migration patterns.
Some 72% of the proposed areas are designated as BLM lands, with “wilderness characteristics,” while some are fully encircling the Badlands Wilderness.
Aside from the loss of land itself, the deregulation of these cities could pose significant threats, according to Dr. Erika Allen Wolters, an Oregon State University professor who focuses on political science and public lands, among other environmental specializations.
Freedom Cities, she said, wouldn’t necessarily have the oversight of any U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules, which typically make considerations about how land is being used and identify any potential ecological impacts.
“These laws were put into effect for a reason, and the idea, then, that we waived our regulatory concerns over things in order for, let’s just say, housing to go up quickly, or any other infrastructure to go up quickly, doesn’t allow the proper opportunity for there to be public comment, for there to be good, solid scientific review of the proposal. In that, then a lot could be lost,” she said.
Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang noted the importance of conservation and recreation to Central Oregonians. Locals, he said, value public lands because of the wildlife habitats, watershed lands, natural resources and recreational opportunities.
“People come here to have access to forests and desert and rivers and creeks. And you know, it is a fundamental part of the attraction of this community, to have such abundant access to amazing federal public lands, and if you’re going to start chopping that up and giving it away or or privatizing it, there’s going to be massive outcry in the community,” said Chang.
Bipartisan Opposition
Lee’s proposal to sell public lands received national attention in June, sparking significant bipartisan opposition.
More locally, on June 21, Bend locals gathered at Drake Park to march in protest against the proposed sale of public lands – highlighting the arguments against the idea of privately developing protected or otherwise unused land.
“In this day and age, we struggle at the local level to fund the infrastructure needed to build out new neighborhoods. It’s really unrealistic to think that you could build a whole new city from scratch out in the middle of nowhere without a massive infusion of infrastructure dollars.” —Phil Chang
Bend resident Gwen Baker Yuill pointed to the importance of public lands, particularly for those in Central Oregon.
“Public lands are so much a part of the fabric of our lives and the lives of the community, and the idea that they could be auctioned off to the highest bidder… the fact that they’re being stolen and potentially put up for sale is unacceptable,” she told the Source. “Silence is approval. It seems very natural that our community will come out.”
Another resident, Amelia DuBose, who also serves as a member of the Deschutes Youth Climate Coalition, hoped the community outcry could enact change.
“I really care about public lands, and I really don’t like the Big, Beautiful Bill, and so this addition to it is very dangerous,” DuBose told the Source. “I think this is a really good show of community support for public lands. I also am excited to see where things like this go, because protesting is great, but I’m really excited to see how we can make policy change and other change to protect what we already have.”
On June 16, Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley also weighed in about the various parts of the Big Beautiful Bill.
“Our public lands — which contribute to the spirit and economies of communities throughout Oregon and the country — belong to all of us. Republicans’ attempt to sell off our public lands, kick millions off of their health insurance, and make it harder for families to put food on the table — all to fund tax giveaways for billionaires — is a betrayal to families and communities across this country,” Merkley wrote in a June 16 statement.
County Commissioner Patti Adair, a conservative, previously showed interest in the idea of Freedom Cities in a March “Bloomberg” article.
When we asked Adair about it in June, for this article, she was not clear about her position. She called the model both a “complicated proposal” and an “interesting idea,” acknowledging that local rent prices need to come down.
Legality and Practicality
According to Wolters with OSU, conversations around public land transfers have been going on for many years. Any attempts to modify the long-settled legality of lands staying in public trust to the federal government, she said, always immediately alerts the public to oppose those proposals.
“There’s high bipartisan support for the protection of public land remaining basically in public trust. And so as we’ve seen efforts to try to get these lands either transferred and ownership or management over to state entities, you see a pretty big backlash from not only more liberal environmental groups, but also groups that might… lean a little bit more conservative or Republican,” Wolters told the Source.
To open the door to the possibility of Freedom Cities, according to a memo from the Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on domestic Freedom Cities policy, the U.S. government would have to authorize the special designation of these areas, including both private land conversion and federal land-use allowances.
With opposition from several groups who utilize public lands, including hunters, ranchers and advocates, some Republican officials have opposed the idea of selling public lands.
Oregon Republican, Rep. Cliff Bentz, who represents the eastern side of the state in Congress, said he supports the sale or exchange of federal land, but only when it has economic or social demand, follows appropriate procedures and is “generally supported by those affected.”
In a June 25 statement, Bentz said he did not support Lee’s public land sale proposal, stating that this sort of policy should not be introduced without the opportunity for debate from those impacted.
“Of particular concern in making any decision to sell public land is the sale’s impact on those who have rights in the land or currently have some type of use of the land,” he wrote in a statement.
“Indian Tribes, neighbors, grazing permittees, those utilizing public access across the land, hunters, watershed function, holders of easements, and environmental impact are some of the issues that must be taken into account in making a decision to alter ownership.”
According to Wolters with OSU, Congress would need to approve sales of federal public land. These decisions have happened before, she said, by trading or negotiating smaller parcels of land with the state – usually on land that would not really be considered consequential.
While Lee’s proposal to mandate the sale of federal land could offer the opportunity for more targeted policies to go into place, Gailes with AEIC says it’s currently unclear if that land would permit the construction of Freedom Cities.
In a Frontier Foundation memo, the group suggests that the U.S. government should authorize “the special designation of Freedom Cities,” as well as “oversight capacity” and “certain federal regulation exemptions.” This could include an “executive branch task force and approval body,” establishing a White House-led task force or council to oversee key policy decisions and approvals.
Even if Congress were to pass rules that would further the discussion of Freedom Cities, experts and officials question the feasibility and the actual purpose.
“The proposed Freedom Cities have limited practicality for expanded housing in terms of their connectivity to existing water distribution, sewer, and emergency services. These areas are also impractical from a water availability and wildfire hazard standpoint, neither of which AEI analyzed in their Freedom Cities GIS exercise,” said Gordon with COLW.
Additionally, he said, each of the proposed Freedom Cities locations would presumably rely on groundwater in areas with demonstrably depleted aquifers.
Aside from infrastructure and utility concerns, the feasibility of costs and actually building affordable housing seems to be far-fetched.
“In this day and age, we struggle at the local level to fund the infrastructure needed to build out new neighborhoods,” Chang of Deschutes County said. “It’s really unrealistic to think that you could build a whole new city from scratch out in the middle of nowhere without a massive infusion of infrastructure dollars.”
The other plans for Freedom Cities, aside from fast-tracking housing, include “fostering regional centers of technological innovation.” Groups like Frontier Foundation also see these cities housing “industry centers.”
Wolters questions how these proposals, promoted under the notion of building middle-class housing, could actually be used for housing, and specifically affordable housing.
“I think right now, there’s a lot of these kind of promises or statements that make it sound as if it’s going to benefit or improve our public housing crisis, when, instead, it could have absolutely nothing to do with that,” she said.
“It’s very possible it would be sold off to make large mansions or to parcel that land out to millionaires or billionaires who would like to have a big hunk of Western land.”
This article appears in Source Weekly July 3, 2025.
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So, the Federal government, in order to reduce the size of government, creates an entirely new office to oversee these [gag] Freedom Cities? Whatever. Then, such cities proposed by a doublethink tank comprised of members who are not residents of nor have ever visited Central Oregon identify lands they believe to be feasible, which Central Oregon LandWatch rightly and immediately disputes? While I dont generally agree with COLW on a lot, their analysis is spot on. Protection of our public lands is one of the only things with which blue and red agree in Central Oregon, even if they dont agree on the ways in which to do it.
The proposed areas are ludicrous, and the primary reason Millican, Brothers, and Hampton could never grow beyond stage stops. The water table is nearly nonexistent, and current landowners in the region cant afford to deepen their already troubled wells. But yes, lets stick a bunch of deregulated Murica Morons in the middle of the high desert plateau to Darwinize themselves while sucking the life out of a fragile ecology.
Thanks for the important reporting youre doing, Julianna. You put out awesome work.