ONE OF THE great ironies of life in mountain and desert states is that many of the people you meet are either escapees or descendants of the East Coast—but they ended up in a place where Washington, D.C., has an enormous presence.
The federal government owns more than 60 percent of Alaska and “46.4 percent of the 11 coterminous western states,” the Congressional Research Service reported in 2012. Elsewhere in the U.S., by contrast, the feds’ share is just 4 percent.
To say the feds “manage” these lands is an affront to clear language. As Shawn Regan, a former Park Service ranger turned scholar at the Property and Environment Research Center, wrote in The Wall Street Journal in April 2015, “the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management lose $2 billion each year” in the effort.
Some of that property is just more or less being hoarded. Almost 10 million acres of federal land in the West—roughly equivalent to the combined area of Connecticut and New Hampshire—is “entirely landlocked, and can be accessed only with the permission of the neighboring private landowners,” according to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. That means plots that have theoretically been put aside for public use instead serve as some very lucky people’s backyards.
Esta historia es de la edición January 2019 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición January 2019 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Gimme Shelter - The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
AI Is Coming for Hollywood's Jobs
But so is everyone else.
AI Can Do Paperwork Doctors Hate
With help from AI, doctors can focus on patients.
Antitrust May Smother the Power of AI
Left alone, AI could actually help small firms compete with tech giants.
A Brief, Biased History of the Culture Wars
THE FIRST PAR AGR APH of the book jacket lays it out: “There is a common belief that we live in unprecedented times, that people are too sensitive today, that nobody objected to the actions of actors, comedians, and filmmakers in the past.
FAMILIES NEED A VIBE SHIFT
THE AUTHORS OF FOUR NEW BOOKSWITH 24 KIDS BETWEEN THEM-SAY THE AMERICAN FAMILY NEEDS A COURSE CORRECTION.
"The Past Is There To Teach Us What Can Happen'
Hardcore History's Dan Carlin on hero worship and moral assumptions in the study of the past
Cutting Off Israel
ENDING U.S. AID WOULD GIVE WASHINGTON LESS LEVERAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THAT’S WHY IT’S WORTH DOING.
WHAT CAUSED THE D.C.CRIME WAVE?
GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT, NOT SENTENCING REFORM OR SPARSE SOCIAL SPENDING, DESERVES THE BLAME.
States Turn Their Backs on Criminal Justice Reform
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to avoid the “strange bedfellows” cliché when reading about the criminal justice reform movement in the 2010s.