laissez fairy

Take a look at this map from the fabulous Strange Maps.

For advocates of a free and rational society with a limited government, this map should be disturbing on its face.

But also consider the history involved.  The feds control most of the land in the newest states; the dramatic shift from east to west on this map roughly correlates with the 19th-Century growth of statist philosophy in American politics.  Just a few other quick thoughts:

1) You can’t explain the stark east-west divide by “beauty” of the territory.  Oregon and Washington look almost exactly like West Virginia or northern Arkansas or Kentucky.

2) The areas where the feds control the most land are usually considered to be  rich in natural resources, esp. oil (Alaska: almost 70 percent fed control).  The fact that the feds control all this land (and the fact that the medievalists in the environmental lobby have gained so much sway over the feds since the 1960’s) means that we’re not even allowed to explore most of this land for natural resources.

3) The map seems to reveal almost zero correlation between percentage of land owned by the feds and cost of living.  Massachusetts and California are both very expensive.  Similarly, Utah and Arkansas are both extremely cheap places to live.  This is curious because normally liberals argue that housing (and, hence, everything else) is so expensive in Boston, NYC, San Francisco, and DC not because of insane left-wing policies like rent-control, high taxes, environmental impact studies, and refusal to build new freeways but because of the amount of available land.  (Obviously such arguments are nonsense.  Boston is one of the world’s most expensive cities, but a quick drive across Massachusetts reveals that most of the state is uninhabited.)  But if you’re focusing on “available land” as a factor in cost of living, the difference on this map between available land in California and Massachusetts is revealing, as is the similarity of available land in California and Utah.

4) What does this map say about all those studies that liberals cite to the effect that the “red states” receive more government pork than the blue states?  Obviously it requires great sums of $ for the feds and the states to monitor all this vacant land to make sure none of us pesky citizens are trespassing/squatting and maybe trying to put the land to good use.