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Now is the Time for the Buffalo Commons
The Federal Government owns more than half of Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Alaska and it owns nearly half of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. See the map for more. It is time for a sale. Selling even some western land could raise hundreds of billions of dollars - perhaps trillions of dollars - for the Federal government at a time when the funds are badly needed and no one want to raise taxes. At the same time, a sale of western land would improve the efficiency of land allocation.
Does a sale of western lands mean reducing national parkland? No, first much of the land isn't parkland. Second, I propose a deal. The government should sell some of its most valuable land in the west and use some of the proceeds to buy low-price land in the Great Plains.
The western Great Plains are emptying of people. Some 322 of the 443 Plains counties have lost population since 1930 and a majority have lost population since 1990.
Now is the time for the Federal government to sell high-priced land in the West, use some of the proceeds to deal with current problems and use some of the proceeds to buy low-priced land in the Plains creating the world's largest nature park, The Buffalo Commons.
Hat tip to Carl Close for the pointer to the map.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on November 13, 2008 at 07:41 AM in Economics, History, Science, Travels | Permalink
Comments
Is it mere coincidence that the Texas federal lands look like a mini version of the state itself?
Posted by: cork at Nov 13, 2008 8:05:02 AM
Uh, OK.
Who's going to buy? Toll Brothers? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? ?
Posted by: at Nov 13, 2008 8:05:51 AM
I am curious how this is supposed to work. I have heard some banks are asking for as much as 30% down on loans; so where are most Americans supposed to find the capital to buy land? Also, what is the motivation to buy those lands right now? Yes they are beautiful, but is there really a large market for them with money being tight for so many Americans? Are people willing to make such an unnecessary expenditure?
Posted by: Question1 at Nov 13, 2008 8:09:17 AM
Who's going to buy?
Russia, China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia....
Posted by: at Nov 13, 2008 8:10:26 AM
I'll give you 24 cents for Nevada.
Posted by: Sammler at Nov 13, 2008 8:11:25 AM
I'll give you 24 cents for Nevada.
Posted by: Sammler at Nov 13, 2008 8:13:26 AM
"a sale of western land would improve the efficiency of land allocation."
Alex, this is true if and only if the buyer values the land more highly than the seller, and in that case it would be true tautologically. It is not an argument for selling public lands.
Posted by: Dan Cole at Nov 13, 2008 8:20:00 AM
What would be the benefit of selling land and buying banks with the money?
Land at least is much easier to administer -- if you don't trust the government to administer the land, why trust it with banks?
Presumably there are other ways to spend the money -- depending on which side of the bed Paulson wakes up -- but most such ways seem harder to get right than land administration.
Posted by: Alex at Nov 13, 2008 8:22:29 AM
Wow, I had no idea it was so much!!!
Posted by: Speedmaster at Nov 13, 2008 8:33:51 AM
But who will pay for the lower property values as a result of the land sale, the same federal government?
Posted by: kurt at Nov 13, 2008 8:36:55 AM
Many Arizonans have been calling on this for a long time. While I dont believe that it really affects the Phoenix area all that much, preserving the vast forests of Northern Arizona has seen house prices continue to rise with very little added supply and steadily increasing demand. Particularly, in Flagstaff.
Posted by: Sean at Nov 13, 2008 8:45:22 AM
Aren't most state governments facing their own budget crises?
If they do want to/are able to buy, I'll agree to sell them back if we can scrap the electoral college system.
Posted by: meter at Nov 13, 2008 8:51:35 AM
As a taxpayer and one of the owners of said land, I can tell you we should have done this 3 or 4 years ago, when prices were still rising.
Why would we sell now, when real estate prices are falling? And going to fall even further?
And if we do sell, how will the proceeds be used? And who will decide how the proceeds are used? The investment geniuses in Washington, DC? You mean the same folks who talk about (well, used to talk about) "lockboxes" for Social Security? And buying banks and automakers?
Oh, just make sure we pay real estate commissions on all those land sales. Because all the poor real estate agents and brokers are really hurting right now. Did this idea come from the "National Association of Realtors (R)" ?
Ai yi yi
Posted by: at Nov 13, 2008 8:53:43 AM
You know I seem to recall a time when all that western public land was for sale at good prices for ready development, they even had a name for it: "Homesteading". There used to be a whole lot of people out in those states trying to integrate them into the mainstream economy, and they failed and the land reverted to the gummint. You also mistake what that land is used for. These aren't 'natural' or empty areas at all, they are administered and leased to ranchers and loggers and others who extract value.
Posted by: Alger at Nov 13, 2008 8:54:21 AM
Shock Doctrine anyone?
Posted by: Organic George at Nov 13, 2008 8:57:00 AM
These aren't 'natural' or empty areas at all, they are administered and leased to ranchers and loggers and others who extract value.
Ah, now we know where this idea came from: PETA and Sierra Club.
Posted by: at Nov 13, 2008 8:57:44 AM
It looks like Texas because all the red squares are really just shrunken images of the state's themselves, not representative of federal land.
Posted by: Jason at Nov 13, 2008 8:57:51 AM
There isn't enough water for the people already there. Since the population of the U.S. is due to rise 100 million people in the next fifty years, perhaps a program of encouraging the creation of 50 new 2 million-person cities in the the southern plains.
Posted by: at Nov 13, 2008 9:04:29 AM
Perhaps this idea should be tried out as a pilot project first, on the prairie grasslands within the city limits of Detroit.
Posted by: at Nov 13, 2008 9:18:15 AM
A lot of this land is wilderness areas or other such protected land, so it's unlikely that would be sold. Also, a good chunk of the land in Nevada and other places is pretty barren and I doubt you'd find buyers for it. But some of the land could easily be sold. In states like Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon, the feds own a lot of forestland that is interspersed among privately-owned land (usually owned by logging companies). This is a result of the checker-board pattern of land giveaways involved with the building of railroads. I'm sure these companies would like to own this land. There are also a lot of ranchers who lease range land that may be willing to buy.
The price would need to be set pretty low to induce these companies and ranchers to buy, though. Right now they can log this land (although that has been getting more difficult over the past decade or so) or lease this land for grazing at fairly low prices. Why would they want to buy it if they can use it at a lower price?
Of course, any attempt to sell this land would be met with fierce resistance, so it's not like any of this really matters.
Posted by: Marc at Nov 13, 2008 9:33:41 AM
So your response to a real estate market glutted with supply is... to dramatically increase the supply still more?
Outstanding. I guess that's one way to make real estate worthless "affordable."
Posted by: Hal O'Brien at Nov 13, 2008 9:43:27 AM
Ivory tower academics are clueless. The time to sell was 2005. Let's see if BLM can sell a single desert acre in Nevada this month. In 2007 the BLM sold 1 parcel out of 33.
Now the issue is, did the BLM vendor-finance the peak 2005 sales, and, if so, can the insolvent developers access the TARP slush fund.
Posted by: marmico at Nov 13, 2008 9:48:18 AM
The populace must be "encouraged" to remain in major metropolitan areas, so they don't develop
the habits of independence and self-reliance. That just doesn't serve the chattering classes interests.
Posted by: Superheater at Nov 13, 2008 9:50:46 AM
Selling land in Nevada and California could depress home values in some areas.
It might be easier to lease the land for 100 years, to harvest renewable resources, then buy half of Detroit, Youngstown, or Upstate New York to create parkland.
But while this has appeal, I don't see it being politically viable.
Posted by: DanC at Nov 13, 2008 9:54:15 AM
Yeah, Russia, Venezuela and the like are just rolling in dough now.
Posted by: MM at Nov 13, 2008 9:59:54 AM
