• tal@lemmy.today
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    27 days ago

    To be fair, it’s not very evenly distributed. I can imagine some states being grouchy that a wildly disproportionate share of their land cannot be put into economic use, when other states are not kicking in something comparable.

    https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state

    Wyoming has 46.7% of its land be federal. Nevada 80.1%. New York has 0.8%.

    • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Population densities are a factor as well. The state Wyoming has fewer people than New York City and it’s by a lot.

      Wyoming is mostly land, there’s plenty there to be profitable with. This is mostly ranchers trying to use cheap land and suburban developers trying to increase profits. Both are paying politicians to sign off on it.

      It’s the very thing Teddy Roosevelt fought to start the National Parks Department and that in turn empowered Truman to create the Bureau of Land Management. These two departments preserve and manage almost 10% of this country so that it remains accessible to the world. We should not as a nation allow it to be eroded.