9 ms·

Cheap Land Colorado: What going off the grid really looks like

104 points by nsoonhui 4y ago

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Off grid is getting so much closer to plug and play, and I think it will dovetail with RV-EVs and (highway) self-driving. Your RV will be likely a PHEV with a big honking battery and some compact generator (those inside-out rotaries look promising, or a fuel cell, even though I'm a major hydrogen skeptic). It'll have solar on the RV roof, plus a fold-out solar array when parked (doubles as a canopy) that will provide ample power for an off-grid level of lifestyle. The EV battery doubles as a battery backup for the solar, and the PHEV hybrid range extender doubles as a backup generator. You could even do some sort of fifth wheel + enhanced battery. Big problem with towing in an EV pickup is the range, but that's because we don't typically think about the possibility of the trailer RV having a big battery, and that can be linked to the Pickup truck's battery for enhanced all-electric range. Communication? Starlink. In the area in the article, you don't even have trees that would intermittently block the satellite tracking. For longer term offgrid, water collection and sanitation are the big challenges, well, and emergency services. It's a shame the industry didn't go all-in on PHEVs when hybrids appeared ... TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. Five years after the Insight/Prius there should have been a plug in hybrid in every consumer segment, with subsidies to make them cheaper than pure ICE drivetrains. We would have likely electrified 60-90% of daily drive trips. I still think an aggressive PHEV policy should complement policies for EV adoption, but I doubt automakers will invest in new hybrid drivetrains, given the choice of the massive engineering switch to EV drivetrain and a new hybrid drivetrain, most will just go EV and limp along with whatever legacy ICE drivetrains they have in the meantime. Especially CEOs get fired if they don't adopt EV drivetrains. Hell they get fired if they don't switch over fast enough (see: VW).
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  America: Where it seems easier to solve self-driving and live indefinitely in the commons of the Interstate Highway System, than it does to just own a reasonable goddamn house.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    My wife and I were raised in the suburbs in Colorado, in relatively large homes/condos/apartments and we owned a decent sized home in the suburbs for a bit. We've steadily moved into smaller and smaller apartments, in denser and denser city areas until now when we live innthe heart of SF in a pretty small apartment. We're much happier. We also own an RV for when we need to get out of the city for a respite. If you look at total quality of life, at least how my wife and I see it, it's not really about maximizing your square footage and acreage, it's about maximizing your community and activities you love to do. The latter often points to a smaller more modest home, and more community and opportunity.
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      I need to give up my woodworking hobby first — it needs a lot of (garage) space.
      - paleogizmo 4y ago
        DIY furniture is not cheap compared with mass-produced even without considering time, so giving up the hobby is a sound financial decision. For huge cost savings, there is a large market of used furniture available private-party. Edit: Hobbies certainly aren't practical, but there is often a practical aspect associated with them used as a justification, e.g. for having fresher vegetables or unusual varieties not sold in a supermarket/co-op. I bring up cost with woodworking as it's a notoriously expensive hobby, especially second-order costs such as the decision to own a single-family home or a larger vehicle.
        Xylakant 4y ago
        Isn’t the “it’s not cheap compared to mass produced.” sort of the description of a hobby? I bake (on and off) as a hobby and while that is comparatively simple in terms of equipment, if I start considering the time and actual costs, the pretty expensive hipster bakery starts to look more and more appealing. Same for the vegetables we grow in our garden.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Just an FYI (I know you were talking about PHEV): some people have tried & tested the EV-for-RV route and found it wanting, in the sense that you can rarely plan on driving more than 100 miles at a time despite huge battery systems for the engine. The extra weight really makes a huge difference. Solar-for-everything-but-the-engine is already a conventional reality unless you need air conditioning, and even that is becoming possible. Water collection is not a technical problem, but a climate one. West of the 100th meridian, not enough water falls from the sky to collect, most of the year. Even in wetter areas, however, collecting enough water between rainfalls for the needs of even two people is not completely trivial.
oxfeed65261 4y ago
https://archive.ph/nd1Tb https://archive.ph/nd1Tb
bovermyer 4y ago
The challenge with living like this is that it eliminates two of the things most people rely on - a social support network, and modern infrastructure. The second one is less of a problem than the first one. As another commenter here pointed out, you can get relatively close to exurb living standards technology-wise with careful equipment purchases (and deep pockets). However, you will be without anyone to help you if things go even a little bit south. In a city, if you break your arm, you'll be inconvenienced and in pain for awhile, but you'll be fine eventually. In the middle of the wilderness, a broken arm may be a death sentence. We rely on other people too much for the "off grid lifestyle" to be viable for most of us.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  This has been my conclusion. Access to good Healthcare, in less than an hour or two is one of thr greatest luxury there is. Choosing to go without that is a real concession.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The people who WANT to go off-grid are often willing to be far from town - but it's perfectly possible to go off-grid and still be quite close to a town with reasonable healthcare; it just costs more and it's probably not worth going completely off-grid at that point. It does help tremendously if you have more than one person, even a family will have two or more adults, and these people often have a smallish group.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Zoning can get tricky here, depending on the state and county. It can be done- in fact, my property could be fully off-grid, but I like having a grid backup for electricity, and fiber internet. I'm about a 20 minute drive from two different hospitals (towns west and east), and 10 minutes from a clinic that doesn't have emergency services. My nearest neighbor is probably a half mile away.
    - bombcar 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
paleogizmo 4y ago
A reminder for those of us seeking to leave the rat race and live in the middle of nowhere: The article describes Mr. Conover's decision to purchase 5 acres in the area, and reading between the lines, his neighbors have decided to do the same. Which is to say that no one is living all alone in the middle of hundreds of miles of forest, this is just very low-density housing with some hobby farming. This also means that houses are about 500' from each other. That is plenty close enough to be annoying if a neighbor or guest decides to play music at a bonfire party or spend the morning target shooting. You don't get to live in the middle of nowhere unless you are rich and can afford the upfront cost of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land. Aside: It' a little unclear what area exactly the article is talking about. When I look up San Luis Valley, I see an area of mostly center-pivot irrigation (near 37.698, -106.009), so I assume that there is a non-arable part of the valley with low property values.
- nmcfarl 4y ago
  > You don't get to live in the middle of nowhere unless you are rich and can afford the upfront cost of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land. However, this level of rich is pretty obtainable for West Coast programmer. In parts of northeast Oregon an undeveloped acre goes for 1-2K, when you buy a few hundred. And couple hundred acres can be purchased with an on grid, but remote house for under $1 million. —- (You probably won’t like the house, and the nice properties mainly sell inside families, and the bank won’t likely give you a mortgage with less than 50% down, and insurance will not be fun. But this is all surmountable.)
  - mealkh 4y ago
    This is just so bizarre by German standards. It shows we live in a densely populated country: my 3 acres are considered a "kingdom" over here by many, and while it is as remote as it can get neighbours would still be in shouting distance. Probably not possible to be really remote here. Anyway, even such a property goes for several 100k here and is advertised for the "vast area". 100 acres would not be possible under 7 figures, I think.
    - 4y ago
Paul_S 4y ago
I want to stop writing software, build a low impact house and become a modern day peasant. No, really, I have given this years of thought. Unfortunately, this is impossible in England (legally), unless you have 1M pounds in cash. Please share if you have some useful resources on how to do it, although I'd rather not buy land in Portugal, Spain or other country with friendlier laws - this is common advice.
- paulcole 4y ago
  I’m assuming you’ve already thrown away your non-work computer, don’t watch television, and don’t own/use a smart phone? And you’re only eating meat you hunt/fish/raise yourself?
  - Paul_S 4y ago
    Why would I do any of that? I'd like to emphasize the word "modern" in my post. I don't want to live apart from society or modern technology. I embrace modern technology (I guess to a point, don't own anything smart or use clouds). I'm a woodworker and only use hand tools where they are genuinely better, otherwise it's machines all the way. I don't want to cosplay as a British Amish.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      You don’t need $1,000,000 to live like a peasant. My cousin’s broke and he manages OK. It sounds more like you want to live like a rich person lol.
      - Paul_S 4y ago
        The crucial detail is "in England". I could do this in America no problem, I know. I'm surprised more Americans don't take advantage of this freedom they have.
        HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
        The freedom to make their life more difficult? I live on a farm in the Midwest; there's a reason most people prefer life in the city/suburbs: it's simply much easier.
adamgordonbell 4y ago
I'm reading this book right now and its so good. Great to see a review in the new yorker but I'm a little surprised by somewhat negative take. The land in the valley is like 5k for 5 acres and the people are struggling to survive and often almost dying in the winter. And Conover goes and lives with them, and meets with them, helps them, as an outreach person for a local rural help-the-poor organization and reports on their lives in a fairly neutral way considering some of the craziness going on. He is definitely the center of the story, but he is also a somewhat benign character, like Nick the narrator in the great gatsby. It's also interesting that there are more well healed off-griders in some the area he is in, on more expensive land with more resources, but because he is working as a rural outreach person and probably because those people are less exciting characters, the book's focus is more on the lower income off-griders, who come to it not from some ideological reason, but from a place of survival and adventure - more like pioneers who also have grow-opps.
- exolymph 4y ago
  The reviewer was basically mad that he wasn't judgmental enough. Their criticism is a commendation in my eyes.
  - jamestimmins 4y ago
    I don't think that's an accurate representation of the criticism. The reviewer is primarily critical that he doesn't delve deeper into the backstories or structural forces that lead to people living there, and seems content with somewhat shallow descriptions of how their lives interact with the author's.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/well-heeled https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/well-heeled https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/well-heeled.html https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/well-heeled.html
davidw 4y ago
Here's an article by the author of the book about that area from a couple years ago: https://harpers.org/archive/2019/08/the-last-frontier/ https://harpers.org/archive/2019/08/the-last-frontier/ There's some of this kind of land in Oregon, too. Subdivided into chunks that are small enough and remote enough to be affordable, but not large enough to live off due to scarce resources (not enough water, poor soils). This story is particularly tragic: https://magazine.atavist.com/outlaw-country-klamath-county-oregon-guns-murder/ https://magazine.atavist.com/outlaw-country-klamath-county-o... Closer to where I live in Bend, Oregon, there's one of those remote subdivided areas. A few years back, an article in the paper jumped out at me for a line in it. A guy had asked the sheriff's department to do a wellness check on his brother, who he hadn't heard from for several days. The deputy decided to wait to visit until the next day because it was after dark. I reread that when I saw it in the paper. The sheriff's deputy didn't want to go there after dark. Wow. Turned out the guy was already dead; his wife shot him after he allegedly beat her. Along the lines of developers selling off land in crazy places, Christmas Valley, OR is also an interesting story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Valley,_Oregon#Penn_Phillips_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Valley,_Oregon#Penn_...
- stevenwoo 4y ago
  A couple of things stuck out from the Harpers article - it's 50 below in winter in that area of cheap land in Colorado and you cannot leave your home unattended for any period of time or it will be ransacked. It's rugged living (compared to most Americans' lives) combined with a sort of self enforced stay at home isolation which can appeal to a segment of population that may have grown larger after our Covid experience, though I feel like the kids in that article would not have agreed with it.
- runjake 4y ago
  That Atavist story. Wow. Good read and tragic. Cheers from the next valley over.
- waltbosz 4y ago
  This is off-topic, but I just wanted to say hello and mention that last night I watched documentary about the Blockbuster Video that is still open in Bend, Oregon. On-topic: I used to subscribe to the newsletter from landio.com, which sells semi-remote land. It's fun to read about their different offerings. They do a pretty good job of listing whats in the area (towns, hospitals, grocery, building supply, hunting) and what resources (water, power, phone/Internet).
deleted 4y ago
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flovec 4y ago
I never thought I would see the SLV in the New Yorker! A friend and I purchased 5 acres in the SLV around 2008 from a guy on Craigslist for 5K. We had no serious intentions at the time. But I was laid off from aerospace in 2009 after the crash, and so I moved out there for a summer, living in a conversion Astro van (before #vanlife, and definitely still van-down-by-the-river and not cool), and started to build a cabin. I didn't finish it that summer, but I eventually moved out to Colorado the next year to do so. My experience in the SLV can't really be summed up in a comment - you could write a book :D - but I think this picture captures the beauty of the place: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hlvnsofo4leiseo/img_0012.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/hlvnsofo4leiseo/img_0012.jpg?dl=0 I lived there for about 8 months straight in my longest stretch. It was the kind of difficult I wanted. I (and every one else living in the mountains) had major issues with theft, though. There were multiple break-ins, and the last time I visited, just a flat-out smashing of windows and stripping of siding. I never finished the cabin and abandoned the project after I moved from Colorado. It was perhaps one of the few times I utilized the sunk cost fallacy and didn't dig deeper :) When I left the SLV, the folks I knew living in RVs were being pushed out for land use violations (or at least that's how I remember it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec8M2bZNEac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec8M2bZNEac . Most folks I knew moved out in RVs/vans first and then attempted to build after they were there (this includes me as well!). To my knowledge, RV living is "illegal" past a certain number of days on most residential properties in the US, but I do not know what prompted the code enforcement (if anything).
- ip26 4y ago
  The restrictions on indefinite RV living center around habitability. Sewage is a big part. Off grid sewage needs to be managed properly to avoid spreading disease. For example, you might need a proper leach field, which is addressed as part of building code. Everything I’ve read leads me to believe theft will remain a problem- it’s a very poor area, with limited employment options and a weak law enforcement presence.
  - flovec 4y ago
    I agree with you to some degree, but if your statement were 100% true, you would be able to do both of these things below in my area: - Store (not live in) an RV on an empty lot you own - Use composting as a primary means of sewage disposal Where I live now, you can do neither! This leads me to believe that _some_ building codes - and enforcement of them - is classist in nature. Heck, even with blackwater tanks...people are capable of emptying them at an RV disposal etc. If this were just about management of cleanliness, we could all find a way to make it work.
kylehotchkiss 4y ago
This seems really compelling. I saw a few 20 acre lots for $20k or so, one even near the river. This spot seems remote but nothing like the cheap land Montana I used to look at. It seems like an interesting spot to get a plot, keep it for camping trips, have the option to build a small off-grid house or cabin once the tech improves (sat internet or availability of microwave network). It seems sunny enough in the summer months to use solar. But given the slightly negative tone in the comments here, I sense it’s actually not a good idea. Are neighbor issues out there would be persistent and unresolvable? What are the environmental and construction restrictions? Do buildings just get ransacked often? Is there some ambiguity in ownership and limited state ability to defend your stake? I presume you can’t just build a factory but are there home size/material restrictions?

104 points by nsoonhui 4y ago

Off grid is getting so much closer to plug and play, and I think it will dovetail with RV-EVs and (highway) self-driving. Your RV will be likely a PHEV with a big honking battery and some compact generator (those inside-out rotaries look promising, or a fuel cell, even though I'm a major hydrogen skeptic). It'll have solar on the RV roof, plus a fold-out solar array when parked (doubles as a canopy) that will provide ample power for an off-grid level of lifestyle. The EV battery doubles as a battery backup for the solar, and the PHEV hybrid range extender doubles as a backup generator. You could even do some sort of fifth wheel + enhanced battery. Big problem with towing in an EV pickup is the range, but that's because we don't typically think about the possibility of the trailer RV having a big battery, and that can be linked to the Pickup truck's battery for enhanced all-electric range. Communication? Starlink. In the area in the article, you don't even have trees that would intermittently block the satellite tracking. For longer term offgrid, water collection and sanitation are the big challenges, well, and emergency services. It's a shame the industry didn't go all-in on PHEVs when hybrids appeared ... TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. Five years after the Insight/Prius there should have been a plug in hybrid in every consumer segment, with subsidies to make them cheaper than pure ICE drivetrains. We would have likely electrified 60-90% of daily drive trips. I still think an aggressive PHEV policy should complement policies for EV adoption, but I doubt automakers will invest in new hybrid drivetrains, given the choice of the massive engineering switch to EV drivetrain and a new hybrid drivetrain, most will just go EV and limp along with whatever legacy ICE drivetrains they have in the meantime. Especially CEOs get fired if they don't adopt EV drivetrains. Hell they get fired if they don't switch over fast enough (see: VW).

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
America: Where it seems easier to solve self-driving and live indefinitely in the commons of the Interstate Highway System, than it does to just own a reasonable goddamn house.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  My wife and I were raised in the suburbs in Colorado, in relatively large homes/condos/apartments and we owned a decent sized home in the suburbs for a bit. We've steadily moved into smaller and smaller apartments, in denser and denser city areas until now when we live innthe heart of SF in a pretty small apartment. We're much happier. We also own an RV for when we need to get out of the city for a respite. If you look at total quality of life, at least how my wife and I see it, it's not really about maximizing your square footage and acreage, it's about maximizing your community and activities you love to do. The latter often points to a smaller more modest home, and more community and opportunity.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    I need to give up my woodworking hobby first — it needs a lot of (garage) space.
    - paleogizmo 4y ago
      DIY furniture is not cheap compared with mass-produced even without considering time, so giving up the hobby is a sound financial decision. For huge cost savings, there is a large market of used furniture available private-party. Edit: Hobbies certainly aren't practical, but there is often a practical aspect associated with them used as a justification, e.g. for having fresher vegetables or unusual varieties not sold in a supermarket/co-op. I bring up cost with woodworking as it's a notoriously expensive hobby, especially second-order costs such as the decision to own a single-family home or a larger vehicle.
      - Xylakant 4y ago
        Isn’t the “it’s not cheap compared to mass produced.” sort of the description of a hobby? I bake (on and off) as a hobby and while that is comparatively simple in terms of equipment, if I start considering the time and actual costs, the pretty expensive hipster bakery starts to look more and more appealing. Same for the vegetables we grow in our garden.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
Just an FYI (I know you were talking about PHEV): some people have tried & tested the EV-for-RV route and found it wanting, in the sense that you can rarely plan on driving more than 100 miles at a time despite huge battery systems for the engine. The extra weight really makes a huge difference. Solar-for-everything-but-the-engine is already a conventional reality unless you need air conditioning, and even that is becoming possible. Water collection is not a technical problem, but a climate one. West of the 100th meridian, not enough water falls from the sky to collect, most of the year. Even in wetter areas, however, collecting enough water between rainfalls for the needs of even two people is not completely trivial.

oxfeed65261 4y ago

https://archive.ph/nd1Tb https://archive.ph/nd1Tb

bovermyer 4y ago

The challenge with living like this is that it eliminates two of the things most people rely on - a social support network, and modern infrastructure. The second one is less of a problem than the first one. As another commenter here pointed out, you can get relatively close to exurb living standards technology-wise with careful equipment purchases (and deep pockets). However, you will be without anyone to help you if things go even a little bit south. In a city, if you break your arm, you'll be inconvenienced and in pain for awhile, but you'll be fine eventually. In the middle of the wilderness, a broken arm may be a death sentence. We rely on other people too much for the "off grid lifestyle" to be viable for most of us.

iancmceachern 4y ago
This has been my conclusion. Access to good Healthcare, in less than an hour or two is one of thr greatest luxury there is. Choosing to go without that is a real concession.
bombcar 4y ago
The people who WANT to go off-grid are often willing to be far from town - but it's perfectly possible to go off-grid and still be quite close to a town with reasonable healthcare; it just costs more and it's probably not worth going completely off-grid at that point. It does help tremendously if you have more than one person, even a family will have two or more adults, and these people often have a smallish group.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Zoning can get tricky here, depending on the state and county. It can be done- in fact, my property could be fully off-grid, but I like having a grid backup for electricity, and fiber internet. I'm about a 20 minute drive from two different hospitals (towns west and east), and 10 minutes from a clinic that doesn't have emergency services. My nearest neighbor is probably a half mile away.
  - bombcar 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

paleogizmo 4y ago

A reminder for those of us seeking to leave the rat race and live in the middle of nowhere: The article describes Mr. Conover's decision to purchase 5 acres in the area, and reading between the lines, his neighbors have decided to do the same. Which is to say that no one is living all alone in the middle of hundreds of miles of forest, this is just very low-density housing with some hobby farming. This also means that houses are about 500' from each other. That is plenty close enough to be annoying if a neighbor or guest decides to play music at a bonfire party or spend the morning target shooting. You don't get to live in the middle of nowhere unless you are rich and can afford the upfront cost of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land. Aside: It' a little unclear what area exactly the article is talking about. When I look up San Luis Valley, I see an area of mostly center-pivot irrigation (near 37.698, -106.009), so I assume that there is a non-arable part of the valley with low property values.

nmcfarl 4y ago
> You don't get to live in the middle of nowhere unless you are rich and can afford the upfront cost of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land. However, this level of rich is pretty obtainable for West Coast programmer. In parts of northeast Oregon an undeveloped acre goes for 1-2K, when you buy a few hundred. And couple hundred acres can be purchased with an on grid, but remote house for under $1 million. —- (You probably won’t like the house, and the nice properties mainly sell inside families, and the bank won’t likely give you a mortgage with less than 50% down, and insurance will not be fun. But this is all surmountable.)
- mealkh 4y ago
  This is just so bizarre by German standards. It shows we live in a densely populated country: my 3 acres are considered a "kingdom" over here by many, and while it is as remote as it can get neighbours would still be in shouting distance. Probably not possible to be really remote here. Anyway, even such a property goes for several 100k here and is advertised for the "vast area". 100 acres would not be possible under 7 figures, I think.
  - 4y ago

Paul_S 4y ago

I want to stop writing software, build a low impact house and become a modern day peasant. No, really, I have given this years of thought. Unfortunately, this is impossible in England (legally), unless you have 1M pounds in cash. Please share if you have some useful resources on how to do it, although I'd rather not buy land in Portugal, Spain or other country with friendlier laws - this is common advice.

paulcole 4y ago
I’m assuming you’ve already thrown away your non-work computer, don’t watch television, and don’t own/use a smart phone? And you’re only eating meat you hunt/fish/raise yourself?
- Paul_S 4y ago
  Why would I do any of that? I'd like to emphasize the word "modern" in my post. I don't want to live apart from society or modern technology. I embrace modern technology (I guess to a point, don't own anything smart or use clouds). I'm a woodworker and only use hand tools where they are genuinely better, otherwise it's machines all the way. I don't want to cosplay as a British Amish.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    You don’t need $1,000,000 to live like a peasant. My cousin’s broke and he manages OK. It sounds more like you want to live like a rich person lol.
    - Paul_S 4y ago
      The crucial detail is "in England". I could do this in America no problem, I know. I'm surprised more Americans don't take advantage of this freedom they have.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
        The freedom to make their life more difficult? I live on a farm in the Midwest; there's a reason most people prefer life in the city/suburbs: it's simply much easier.

adamgordonbell 4y ago

I'm reading this book right now and its so good. Great to see a review in the new yorker but I'm a little surprised by somewhat negative take. The land in the valley is like 5k for 5 acres and the people are struggling to survive and often almost dying in the winter. And Conover goes and lives with them, and meets with them, helps them, as an outreach person for a local rural help-the-poor organization and reports on their lives in a fairly neutral way considering some of the craziness going on. He is definitely the center of the story, but he is also a somewhat benign character, like Nick the narrator in the great gatsby. It's also interesting that there are more well healed off-griders in some the area he is in, on more expensive land with more resources, but because he is working as a rural outreach person and probably because those people are less exciting characters, the book's focus is more on the lower income off-griders, who come to it not from some ideological reason, but from a place of survival and adventure - more like pioneers who also have grow-opps.

exolymph 4y ago
The reviewer was basically mad that he wasn't judgmental enough. Their criticism is a commendation in my eyes.
- jamestimmins 4y ago
  I don't think that's an accurate representation of the criticism. The reviewer is primarily critical that he doesn't delve deeper into the backstories or structural forces that lead to people living there, and seems content with somewhat shallow descriptions of how their lives interact with the author's.
drewcoo 4y ago
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/well-heeled https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/well-heeled https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/well-heeled.html https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/well-heeled.html

davidw 4y ago

Here's an article by the author of the book about that area from a couple years ago: https://harpers.org/archive/2019/08/the-last-frontier/ https://harpers.org/archive/2019/08/the-last-frontier/ There's some of this kind of land in Oregon, too. Subdivided into chunks that are small enough and remote enough to be affordable, but not large enough to live off due to scarce resources (not enough water, poor soils). This story is particularly tragic: https://magazine.atavist.com/outlaw-country-klamath-county-oregon-guns-murder/ https://magazine.atavist.com/outlaw-country-klamath-county-o... Closer to where I live in Bend, Oregon, there's one of those remote subdivided areas. A few years back, an article in the paper jumped out at me for a line in it. A guy had asked the sheriff's department to do a wellness check on his brother, who he hadn't heard from for several days. The deputy decided to wait to visit until the next day because it was after dark. I reread that when I saw it in the paper. The sheriff's deputy didn't want to go there after dark. Wow. Turned out the guy was already dead; his wife shot him after he allegedly beat her. Along the lines of developers selling off land in crazy places, Christmas Valley, OR is also an interesting story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Valley,_Oregon#Penn_Phillips_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Valley,_Oregon#Penn_...

stevenwoo 4y ago
A couple of things stuck out from the Harpers article - it's 50 below in winter in that area of cheap land in Colorado and you cannot leave your home unattended for any period of time or it will be ransacked. It's rugged living (compared to most Americans' lives) combined with a sort of self enforced stay at home isolation which can appeal to a segment of population that may have grown larger after our Covid experience, though I feel like the kids in that article would not have agreed with it.
runjake 4y ago
That Atavist story. Wow. Good read and tragic. Cheers from the next valley over.
waltbosz 4y ago
This is off-topic, but I just wanted to say hello and mention that last night I watched documentary about the Blockbuster Video that is still open in Bend, Oregon. On-topic: I used to subscribe to the newsletter from landio.com, which sells semi-remote land. It's fun to read about their different offerings. They do a pretty good job of listing whats in the area (towns, hospitals, grocery, building supply, hunting) and what resources (water, power, phone/Internet).

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flovec 4y ago

I never thought I would see the SLV in the New Yorker! A friend and I purchased 5 acres in the SLV around 2008 from a guy on Craigslist for 5K. We had no serious intentions at the time. But I was laid off from aerospace in 2009 after the crash, and so I moved out there for a summer, living in a conversion Astro van (before #vanlife, and definitely still van-down-by-the-river and not cool), and started to build a cabin. I didn't finish it that summer, but I eventually moved out to Colorado the next year to do so. My experience in the SLV can't really be summed up in a comment - you could write a book :D - but I think this picture captures the beauty of the place: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hlvnsofo4leiseo/img_0012.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/hlvnsofo4leiseo/img_0012.jpg?dl=0 I lived there for about 8 months straight in my longest stretch. It was the kind of difficult I wanted. I (and every one else living in the mountains) had major issues with theft, though. There were multiple break-ins, and the last time I visited, just a flat-out smashing of windows and stripping of siding. I never finished the cabin and abandoned the project after I moved from Colorado. It was perhaps one of the few times I utilized the sunk cost fallacy and didn't dig deeper :) When I left the SLV, the folks I knew living in RVs were being pushed out for land use violations (or at least that's how I remember it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec8M2bZNEac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec8M2bZNEac . Most folks I knew moved out in RVs/vans first and then attempted to build after they were there (this includes me as well!). To my knowledge, RV living is "illegal" past a certain number of days on most residential properties in the US, but I do not know what prompted the code enforcement (if anything).

ip26 4y ago
The restrictions on indefinite RV living center around habitability. Sewage is a big part. Off grid sewage needs to be managed properly to avoid spreading disease. For example, you might need a proper leach field, which is addressed as part of building code. Everything I’ve read leads me to believe theft will remain a problem- it’s a very poor area, with limited employment options and a weak law enforcement presence.
- flovec 4y ago
  I agree with you to some degree, but if your statement were 100% true, you would be able to do both of these things below in my area: - Store (not live in) an RV on an empty lot you own - Use composting as a primary means of sewage disposal Where I live now, you can do neither! This leads me to believe that _some_ building codes - and enforcement of them - is classist in nature. Heck, even with blackwater tanks...people are capable of emptying them at an RV disposal etc. If this were just about management of cleanliness, we could all find a way to make it work.

kylehotchkiss 4y ago

This seems really compelling. I saw a few 20 acre lots for $20k or so, one even near the river. This spot seems remote but nothing like the cheap land Montana I used to look at. It seems like an interesting spot to get a plot, keep it for camping trips, have the option to build a small off-grid house or cabin once the tech improves (sat internet or availability of microwave network). It seems sunny enough in the summer months to use solar. But given the slightly negative tone in the comments here, I sense it’s actually not a good idea. Are neighbor issues out there would be persistent and unresolvable? What are the environmental and construction restrictions? Do buildings just get ransacked often? Is there some ambiguity in ownership and limited state ability to defend your stake? I presume you can’t just build a factory but are there home size/material restrictions?