4 ms·

As if most Americans were still in possession of their original Homestead Act lands.

ty6853 2y ago
Someone (read most people west of the Mississippi at the very least) is in possession of homesteaded or sold land and without that we'd be in an even more serious housing crises. There is an element of hypocrisy. We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I had to build on truly terrible desert shithole land due to insane land prices (and even burnt out trailers were 150k+ so building a shack on vacant land was my only option), much worse than much of public land, I'd prefer others not have to suffer that.
- photonthug 2y ago
  > We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I do sympathize, but this is just so incredibly short-sighted. And allowing politicians to enrich themselves (and their already rich developer/landlord buddies who caused the housing crisis) by selling us back what we already own is no fix at all. We really shouldn't set the precedent of letting politicians buy votes from us by temporarily alleviating the problems that they themselves have caused. The east coast is already a concrete nightmare of conurbation and paved suburbs from Boston to Miami. If you live your whole life in Europe, at least there are proper villages, but it's pretty hard to get more than a few miles away from other people, even in the Alps. If you can get to the Amazon or the Sinai or the Kashmir, then you can enjoy some peace and quiet at the risk of running into soldiers/militants/narcos. In the neighborhood of Everest/Annapurna, roads and cell towers are on the rise. Or you can freeze your tits off in the great frozen north, or file detailed travel plans with China and struggle to arrange for transport to remote areas. The combination of accessible/inaccessible in the American west plus the relative stability is unique, it is a refuge, and this kind of thing is disappearing from the world. We'll be much poorer if we give it up, certainly the future will be bleaker, even if some people feel like they are getting a sweet deal on the acreage.
  - ty6853 2y ago
    Are you familiar with everyman's right in Nordic nations? I think a balance can be struck that provides a relief valve for those who need a dwelling while providing access to rugged wilderness. They could be recorded as covenants under the deed.
    - photonthug 2y ago
      I am familiar. Certainly if terms and conditions like this are encoded in deeds then the idea sounds better, but OTOH what we're discussing is eroding protected status and replacing it with "less protected". After "less protected" is the new "protected", then of course it will just be eroded further. Anyway, we all know that desert shacks will eventually want water and power, which is only going to be available if we slightly expand existing cities/townships. This is not great, because actually curbing relentless profiteering is ultimately a better fix than starting a new wave of it, but it's also not terrible. The bait-and-switch here is that removing protections on public lands is ultimately for companies that are interested in exploitative extraction, not for renters. If public lands are going to be used in that way, then at the very least it should be part of a way to fund basic-income or something. This is the way it works in Alaska (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund), and whether or not it's effective is a matter for debate, but at least it actually feels like trying to take a step in the right direction.
      - ty6853 2y ago
        What I'm having trouble getting past is the hypocrisy of building my home on sold public lands while telling the youth 'sorry got mine, go fuck yourself, you can't do the same thing that made my land ownership possible.' Perhaps there is a balance to be struck, but if our ancestors said what you're saying today we'd be in extremely dire straits and squashed into a tiny cluster of OG slivers of chartered land.
        photonthug 2y ago
        It's less about "got mine, fuck you" and more about noticing what does or doesn't work out. As you said, practically everything used to be public land, and yet we observe that a burned out meth trailer on .25 acres still costs a quarter million. So.. now you know exactly what happens if you decide to change nothing else and just privatize public lands. This fixes the problem for 1 guy maybe, who gets the dubious pleasure of paying a slightly less outrageous price and then shitting in a bucket for 20 years. Then that guy fucks over the next generation when they sell at the highest possible price that the market will bear and that increasingly desperate buyers can afford. Why do we want to do more of that? What's the plan for growth when the future arrives and there's nothing else to steal from the public?

Someone (read most people west of the Mississippi at the very least) is in possession of homesteaded or sold land and without that we'd be in an even more serious housing crises. There is an element of hypocrisy. We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I had to build on truly terrible desert shithole land due to insane land prices (and even burnt out trailers were 150k+ so building a shack on vacant land was my only option), much worse than much of public land, I'd prefer others not have to suffer that.

photonthug 2y ago
> We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I do sympathize, but this is just so incredibly short-sighted. And allowing politicians to enrich themselves (and their already rich developer/landlord buddies who caused the housing crisis) by selling us back what we already own is no fix at all. We really shouldn't set the precedent of letting politicians buy votes from us by temporarily alleviating the problems that they themselves have caused. The east coast is already a concrete nightmare of conurbation and paved suburbs from Boston to Miami. If you live your whole life in Europe, at least there are proper villages, but it's pretty hard to get more than a few miles away from other people, even in the Alps. If you can get to the Amazon or the Sinai or the Kashmir, then you can enjoy some peace and quiet at the risk of running into soldiers/militants/narcos. In the neighborhood of Everest/Annapurna, roads and cell towers are on the rise. Or you can freeze your tits off in the great frozen north, or file detailed travel plans with China and struggle to arrange for transport to remote areas. The combination of accessible/inaccessible in the American west plus the relative stability is unique, it is a refuge, and this kind of thing is disappearing from the world. We'll be much poorer if we give it up, certainly the future will be bleaker, even if some people feel like they are getting a sweet deal on the acreage.
- ty6853 2y ago
  Are you familiar with everyman's right in Nordic nations? I think a balance can be struck that provides a relief valve for those who need a dwelling while providing access to rugged wilderness. They could be recorded as covenants under the deed.
  - photonthug 2y ago
    I am familiar. Certainly if terms and conditions like this are encoded in deeds then the idea sounds better, but OTOH what we're discussing is eroding protected status and replacing it with "less protected". After "less protected" is the new "protected", then of course it will just be eroded further. Anyway, we all know that desert shacks will eventually want water and power, which is only going to be available if we slightly expand existing cities/townships. This is not great, because actually curbing relentless profiteering is ultimately a better fix than starting a new wave of it, but it's also not terrible. The bait-and-switch here is that removing protections on public lands is ultimately for companies that are interested in exploitative extraction, not for renters. If public lands are going to be used in that way, then at the very least it should be part of a way to fund basic-income or something. This is the way it works in Alaska (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund), and whether or not it's effective is a matter for debate, but at least it actually feels like trying to take a step in the right direction.
    - ty6853 2y ago
      What I'm having trouble getting past is the hypocrisy of building my home on sold public lands while telling the youth 'sorry got mine, go fuck yourself, you can't do the same thing that made my land ownership possible.' Perhaps there is a balance to be struck, but if our ancestors said what you're saying today we'd be in extremely dire straits and squashed into a tiny cluster of OG slivers of chartered land.
      - photonthug 2y ago
        It's less about "got mine, fuck you" and more about noticing what does or doesn't work out. As you said, practically everything used to be public land, and yet we observe that a burned out meth trailer on .25 acres still costs a quarter million. So.. now you know exactly what happens if you decide to change nothing else and just privatize public lands. This fixes the problem for 1 guy maybe, who gets the dubious pleasure of paying a slightly less outrageous price and then shitting in a bucket for 20 years. Then that guy fucks over the next generation when they sell at the highest possible price that the market will bear and that increasingly desperate buyers can afford. Why do we want to do more of that? What's the plan for growth when the future arrives and there's nothing else to steal from the public?