Communities like Cleveland, OH or other rust belt cities or cities with blight, have properties that are abandoned. Some counties set up a land bank which takes over these abandoned properties and sells them to investors for a very low cost. These properties are owned by someone or a bank and are donating to a land bank who receive the properties for free. The land bank usually allocates about $7-10K to demo properties, so they try to sell some of the properties since they don’t have enough money to demolish them all.
There are 197 land banks over the United States. Visit a website called Center for Community Progress to learn more about turning vacant properties into thriving communities. You can also find your local land bank from this site as well.