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I would like to suggest we cede more of our land to nature, and increasing the amount of uninterrupted wilderness. But that's going to not be popular with a lo

• mrfusion 5y ago
  If we opened up zoning for denser housing this might just happen on its own.
  • Gigachad 5y ago
    It would be incredible if we could give up endless sprawling suburbs for smaller high density areas right next to nature.
• Aperocky 5y ago
  > amount of uninterrupted wilderness. Towns are not the problem, highways are. Specifically interstates and other roads built to that standards.
  • kiba 5y ago
    Roads lead to towns. You might need to remove these towns before you could disconnect the roads. Highways and interstates are problematic, yes, but they often take away lands in suburban areas as opposed to the wilderness.
    • daniel-cussen 5y ago
      You could just have dirt roads. The problem isn't the road per se it's the crazy fast cars on the road. If cars rode at 12mph like they do on dirt roads, at about the speed a deer can gallop, that's like 25x less kinetic energy and if you hit a deer it'll bump and keep going.
      • rascul 5y ago
        > If cars rode at 12mph like they do on dirt roads Cars are often driven at 40mph and faster on dirt roads around here. Bigger dirt roads would see increased speeds.
      • frosted-flakes 5y ago
        Cars frequently drive 100 km/h on dirt roads. Particularly in places like rural South Dakota, where it's almost all dirt roads.
      • BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y ago
        Here in Alberta I regularly do 80-100 km/h on dirt roads where conditions allow.
    • Aperocky 5y ago
      But random towns in the middle of nowhere are not connected by such highways. Speaking as someone who ran over a deer a few months back on a smaller road that connects these community. All kinds of animals cross these roads regularly and usually without impediments, can't be said for an interstate.
  • donarb 5y ago
    There is now an effort to provide passage for animals across highways using overpasses/underpasses. Though not feasible everywhere, they are usually placed near known migration routes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_crossing
• lettergram 5y ago
  1. Only something like 6% of the US is urban. The majority is pasture and forests, which arguably is almost entirely natural. The second largest use is crop land. 2. Deciding where people can live is extremely tyrannical. Many people own this land, what’s the plan, take their ancestral home? That didn’t work out well any time in history. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/december/a-primer-on-land-use-in-the-united-states/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/december/a-primer-... Every time I see comments like this I come to the same conclusion. My bet: you’re from a city, young, white collar, perhaps grew up in suburbs on a coast? Nothing wrong with that, but there’s a disconnect between those living in urban environments vs the country.
  • littlestymaar 5y ago
    [flagged]
  • kiba 5y ago
    2. Deciding where people can live is extremely tyrannical. Many people own this land, what’s the plan, take their ancestral home? That didn’t work out well any time in history. We are already deciding where people can live. It's called zoning, and zoning laws restrict how we can build our homes, where we live, and what transportation options we can use. My proposal seem tyrannical, yes, but I paired it with improving human welfare in the land we didn't cede to nature, and probably more freedom to build and live overall.
    • octokatt 5y ago
      Crazy talk, what if we started tightening regulation so small communities stayed small, and were increasingly built and revitalized in ways that benefited both the community and the surrounding wildlife?
      • smegger001 5y ago
        you would create a horrible housing market where at first very few living in rural areas could aford a home there. killing the middle class in those towns, which would in turn cause the high earners (doctors lawers business owners)to leave as there would be no one that could afford their services, that would then drop the market after they left but all that would be left are the poor now with no jobs. essentially you would be creating a inverse-gentresizing where the middle class leaves then upperclass leaves creating a ghetto.
• DeBraid 5y ago
  There are several initiatives in the hunting and fishing community doing this, aka buying land, managing the wilderness, and making it available to the public. * The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, or TRCP, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) coalition of conservation organizations, grassroots partners and outdoor related businesses, the main goal of which is increased federal funding for conservation while preserving access for hunters and fishers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt_Conservation_Partnership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt_Conservatio... * MeatEater’s Land Access Initiative (designed to raise money so we can find properties that will provide more access for regular folks to hunt and fish) https://www.themeateater.com/pages/land-access https://www.themeateater.com/pages/land-access (Disclosure: no affiliation)
• BurningFrog 5y ago
  I think this is one of the main division in the US Red Tribe/Blue Tribe division. To Blue Tribe nature is a beautiful park we need to preserve and keep untouched. Work is done in an office, producing documents. To Red Tribe nature is a source of raw materials to produce food, metals, power, etc. Work is taming and harvesting the resources of nature. Blue Tribe keeps adding wilderness restrictions, which keeps taking away ways for Red Tribe to make a living, increasing rural poverty, and feeding resentment. I hope that makes sense.
  • b3morales 5y ago
    I think this is badly oversimplified and is maybe showing your own bias a bit -- though I'm probably going to struggle to address it without showing mine in turn (and maybe it's just mine reading it in your comment). Your "Blue wilderness restrictions", writ large, are exactly based on a recognition that > nature is a source of raw materials to produce food, metals, power, etc. I think the policy differences arise downstream from that. Questions like, how to handle competing resource needs; how to manage current or future scarcity; and ultimately some disagreement about whether these questions even need to be asked (i.e. is scarcity of X actually a problem?)
    • BurningFrog 5y ago
      I see it very differently. The "Blue wilderness restrictions" I think of are banning logging, banning mining, banning new farming, banning dams, etc. The "competing resource needs" are balanced in favor of keeping rural areas pristine, so city people can go hiking there and marvel at the untouched nature. Most people live in cities, so when legislators decide these things, the city people priorities win.
  • dudul 5y ago
    And yet, blue tribe is the one who lives surrounded by metal and concrete while red tribe enjoys wide open spaces. See, caricature goes both ways.
• qchris 5y ago
  I suggest you look into the American Prairie Reserve! It's a really interesting non-profit located in Montana, which is dedicated to creating one of the largest uninterrupted pristine North American grassland biomes in the country. They do this through the strategic purchase of private tracts of land that connect public space (national parks, forests, BLM land, etc.) and remove all fences and other migration impediments, while still allowing recreational use by people. They even own and manage their own herd of American bison! [1] https://www.americanprairie.org/ https://www.americanprairie.org/