It also would be nice if they could become outposts of existing towns.

There we have a problem. That makes It so only mega rich players and towns can ressurect the towns. Towns like Celestia and Groozdale that just started would not be able to compete with powerhouses like Dracomere and Town X.

Hi,

The plans that we have for inactive towns are that our main priority is to find an internal alternative for the mayorship; in other words, we will first look to see if any assistants or co-mayors are suitable for the role of mayor. This will go through all of the major town staff ranks before we even consider any form of 'auctioning'.

We don't have plans to sell towns to other towns at a lower price, this would create monopolies and duopolies of towns whereby new towns have a very low chance of being successful. This issue was alluded to by Meep and he's quite right in saying that the big towns would very easily be able to purchase this land without leaving any scuffs on their wallets whereas smaller towns would find it more difficult and risk their own towns stability in doing so.

I hope this helps
-WW