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Who gets to own the West?

nytimes.com

21–30 of 71 posts

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#21
post #16
post #11

I see this is as a problem with wealth inequality and not land per say. A wealth gap leads to exaggerated levels of... you get the idea.

At least we should have a law that people can pass through that land like they have in Scotland.

We'd need Senate and House representatives that represent the bulk of citizens in the US and not those catering to the ultra wealthy's whims.

For that, people would have to vote out a lot of existing politicians, pick fresh faces, and cycle them out regularly enough to make it difficult for a few private interests to buy them out. For some states there are incentives to keep the status quo because it helps them (Kentucky and Mitch McConnell in recent news come to mind), so those cases would be difficult to convince to dump out their representative because they provide just enough support to their states to appease residents.

Overall, there just doesn't seem to be momentum of voters to achieve this and every attempt I've seen has failed. Some of this is likely due to the orchestration/organization problem: it's a lot easier for a few thousand billionaires to converge on shared ideas than hundreds of millions of non-billionaries.

Instead, people shake their heads and go with the flow while complaining about the state of affairs and ongoing trends that hurt their interests and growth. The end result is the continued snowball of wealth inequality we see. I often wonder if we've passed a critical point of recovery within our governmental system to fix this issue but I certainly hope not.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#22
post #19
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin's Beach, closed by Vinod Khosla. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/technology/california-bea...

One datapoint doesn't make a trend, though.

Pila'a Beach closed by Mark Zuckerberg

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/17/mark-zuckerb...

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the problem. Land owners don't pay property tax on land that they have placed a conservation easement on. https://www.landtrustalliance.org/topics/taxes/income-tax-in...

I'm OK with this - I would rather financially incentivize them to conserve their lands, instead of making them feel they need to monetize it to cover a tax bill.

[deleted]

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#25
post #21
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least we should have a law that people can pass through that land like they have in Scotland.

We'd need Senate and House representatives that represent the bulk of citizens in the US and not those catering to the ultra wealthy's whims. For that, people would have to vote out a lot of existing politicians, pick fresh faces, and cycle them out regularly enough to make it difficult for a few private interests to buy them out. For some states there are incentives to keep the status quo because it helps them (Kent…

Mitch McConnell should just start putting corporate logo patches on his suits.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#26
post #12

While it isn't the most pressing issue in the article, a quote that jumped out at me is: "For years, he assumed the road was public..." Public land in the West isn't well-marked, and the difference in usage rights between private, state, and federals lands is not well understood by the general public, and sometimes not possible to know without recent data from the managing organizations regarding current permits and…

That guy was using the road for access to public land. It doesn't necessarily matter who owns the land under a road because the use of the road is supposed to offer access rights. The problem is the guy doesn't have enough money to take on billionaires to assert his access rights.

It abolished be pretty cheap to prove the easement by default or if official.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#27
post #4

> Among the nation’s top landowners are Mr. Malone, with 2.2 million acres in New Mexico, Colorado and other states; To give a sense of perspective, 2.2 million acres is a 94 km by 94 km square (or 59 by 59 miles). Approximately equivalent to a single person owning all of Cyprus or Puerto Rico. Add two more people from that paragraph, and between the three of them, they own more land than all of Israel.

Location, location, location!

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#28
post #12

While it isn't the most pressing issue in the article, a quote that jumped out at me is: "For years, he assumed the road was public..." Public land in the West isn't well-marked, and the difference in usage rights between private, state, and federals lands is not well understood by the general public, and sometimes not possible to know without recent data from the managing organizations regarding current permits and…

That guy was using the road for access to public land. It doesn't necessarily matter who owns the land under a road because the use of the road is supposed to offer access rights. The problem is the guy doesn't have enough money to take on billionaires to assert his access rights.

Totally agree, and that is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to call out - because land ownership is just the first step in knowing what you can and cannot do on that land. There are many other factors.

Likewise, sometimes mining claimants believe they can keep people off their claim, which isn't the legal reality - they have the rights to the materials on the land, not exclusive access. Yet another reality of the West is that you don't argue legalities with the prospector who is holding a gun on you telling you to go away.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#29
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'd need Senate and House representatives that represent the bulk of citizens in the US and not those catering to the ultra wealthy's whims. For that, people would have to vote out a lot of existing politicians, pick fresh faces, and cycle them out regularly enough to make it difficult for a few private interests to buy them out. For some states there are incentives to keep the status quo because it helps them (Kent…

Mitch McConnell should just start putting corporate logo patches on his suits.

I don't disagree but that should be extended to each and every member of Congress.

Re: Who gets to own the West?

#30
I didn’t see this addressed in the article:

How much of this is snapping up land that will be a key value once rising water levels displace coastals?

This strikes me as a much stronger play than just buying up some land.

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