The West Isn’t Disappearing

“The West is disappearing,” claims a new report by the Center for American Progress. They should rename themselves the “Center for Alarming Americans,” as the report is pure hokum.

Based on data from 2001 and 2011, the report found that the West “loses” 432 square miles of land per year, or about an acre every two-and-one-half minutes. This sounds so alarming that the San Jose Mercury-News reported that California is “losing most land to development.” “Most” means “more than half,” but by any definition, far less than half of California has been developed.

The eleven contiguous western states have a total of 1,173,990 square miles of land. At 432 square miles per year, it would take 2,718 years to develop them all. Since half of the land is federal forests, parks, and rangelands that will never receive more than a modest amount of development, there doesn’t seem to be much to worry about.

The “disappearing West” report also says that nearly 165,000 square miles, or 14 percent of the West, has already been developed. That’s a surprise, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Inventory estimates that less than 31,000 square miles of non-federal land in the eleven western states have been developed. That’s just 2.6 percent of the total. Though that doesn’t count developments on federal land, no one thinks that 80 percent of development in the West is on public lands.

It turns out the Center for Alarming Americans has a different definition of “development” than most people. According to page 3 of the center’s methodology report, the Center counts farms, grazing lands, and harvested timber lands as “developed.” By comparison, the U.S. Department of Agriculture counts only urban areas, roads, railroads, and any other “built up” areas more than a quarter acre in size–but not farmlands, rangelands, or forests.

So for a buy bulk viagra romantic weekend, all you need is pop a pill of Tadalista 5 mg. They think the entire secret to outer beauty viagra online no prescriptions is skin lotions and intense workouts. Sex is a normal physiological cialis soft canada reaction, maintaining a good erection. cipla viagra online This will permit the hair follicles to be additional open on the blood stream to get the optimum results of kamagra. Granted that farms are a form of development, and one that is not very friendly to wildlife, it remains true that a lot less than half of California or any other state in the West has been developed. Using the Center’s numbers, less than 20 percent of California had been developed by 2011. That’s a long way from “most.” Using the U.S.D.A.’s numbers, just 4.0 percent had been developed by 2012.

The Center does use percentages in various tables in its report. But the percentages shown are the growth in developed areas, not the share of the West that has been developed. One table shows what share of each state in the West has been “permanently protected” (about 12 percent of the total), but no tables show what share has been developed, thus concealing the truth that it is small.

By the U.S.D.A.’s more conventional definition of developed, developed lands in the West grew by 291 square miles per year between 2002 and 2012, of which 247 square miles is “large urban” developments, 4 square miles is “small built up,” and 40 is “rural transportation.” That’s two-thirds of the Center’s estimate of 432 square miles. As already noted, even at 432 square miles per year it would take thousands of years to develop all of the West.

“The sprawl of housing and commercial buildings, on the other hand, accounted for more than half of all open space that was lost between 2001 and 2011,” says the Center. That’s not too far off from U.S.D.A.’s 247 square miles. But at the rate of 247 square miles a year, it will take more than 4,000 years to completely develop the remaining 80 percent of lands in the West that the Center agrees hasn’t yet been developed. The Antiplanner doesn’t find that very alarming, so it’s no surprise that this information wasn’t found in the Center for Alarming Americans’ report.

By focusing on acres of development, rather than the percentage of the West that has been developed, the Center makes development appear to be much more alarming than it is. By further counting farmlands, rangelands, and harvested forest lands as “developed,” even though most people find farmlands to be pleasant-looking open space and rangelands and managed forests still provide lots of wildlife habitat, the Center has further exaggerated the problem. Even more disappointing is that the reporter for the Mercury didn’t bother to consult others to find out just how unalarming the real numbers are.

Some people would point out that land isn’t being “lost,” it is just being converted from one use to another. Those who care about wildlife habitat and natural areas will find this conversion disturbing. But unduly alarming people with a skewed view of the numbers will result in costly policy decisions. Instead, wildlife lovers need to figure out which lands really need to be protected and concentrate on those.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

9 Responses to The West Isn’t Disappearing

  1. JimKarlock says:

    Antiplanner: ” Those who care about wildlife habitat and natural areas will find this conversion disturbing.”
    They shouldn’t be concerned. We have eagles nesting on skyscrapers, cougars and bears walking around our neighborhoods. And coyotes, coons & possums.

    Wildlife is very adaptable (except in the minds of eco nuts)

    thanks
    JK

  2. Frank says:

    Mr. Karlock should stick to what he knows, and respectfully, it ain’t wildlife. Eagles do not nest on skyscrapers; falcons do. The wildlife Mr. Karlock mentions are common and not threatened; he intentionally omits wildlife that humans have heavily impacted, extirpated, or caused to go extinct.

    “Wildlife is very adaptable (except in the minds of eco nuts)”

    An evidenceless sweeping generalization followed by an insult to anyone who would question said baseless assertion.

    You’re better than that. Right?

  3. paul says:

    I think the problem is perception of open space. In the San Francisco Bay area most of the land is open space in areas preserved from development. However most people living hear seem to think that there is not enough open land and too much urban sprawl. I hike regularly in the open space and there are very few other hikers there. It appears that most of the population don’t know that this area is available. Some of this may be that new park areas do not have roads through them with picnic places, etc. An elderly neighbor of mine who could not walk very far due to health problems felt that areas he used to be able to drive through would be put into open space preservation, and then the roads through them would be closed off, stopping his access.
    Part of the problem is that the development has followed the freeways and most drive only along freeways and see continuous development for many miles. It might have been better to try and keep a mile of open space between cities but allow development away from the freeway with good arterial connection roads. That way open space will continually be seen and appear to be permanent. This may mitigate fears that we are building over open space.

  4. JOHN1000 says:

    The Center for American Progress is very big on increasing immigration. Which makes their report hypocritical and racist in addition to being false.

    If there are millions of extra people now living in the West (i.e. immigrants), more land has to be used to house, employ, school and feed them. (simple math) If the Center truly wants the land to remain undeveloped, it should support restrictions on adding and encouraging more people to move into the West.

    But the article shows an anti-capitalism and anti-business slant and gives the usual platitudes that lead the reader to conclude that if all caucasian conservative and Republican types disappeared, everything would be perfect.

    Where all the immigrants will live, work, eat, etc. is ignored – presumably the Center thinks they should be packed into crowded cities, vote Democratic and depend on government handouts, rather than allowing them to live like real human beings and to use the land in a way that will help them live.

  5. prk166 says:


    Some people would point out that land isn’t being “lost,” it is just being converted from one use to another. Those who care about wildlife habitat and natural areas will find this conversion disturbing.
    ” ~antiplanner

    Did this report indicate how much land is reverting from being used – transitional definition or the alternative one this report used? If they didn’t explicitly break that out, it’s a smell that they’re not taking that into account.

    In the West, where subdivisions usually take over farming land while buying out water rights, that’s especially important. IIRC there’s been a fair normal of marginal farms and ranchs in Eastern Colorado that have gone this way after selling their water rights to developers on the Front Range.

  6. Frank and JimKarlock are each partly right and partly wrong. Yes, the raptors nesting on skyscrapers are peregrine falcons, but they were once listed as an endangered species.

    In general, some species of wildlife are compatible with urban and suburban development, but a lot are not. Suburbs can actually provide pretty diverse bird habitat, but some species will never make it in developed areas. Rather than shut down all development, we need to ask what those species need and find ways to provide it.

  7. Frank says:

    “Rather than shut down all development, we need to ask what those species need and find ways to provide it.”

    Agreed.

    While logging may not count as permanent development, resource extraction has effects that can last for many decades. The feds build roads, allowing easy access, which creates secondary impacts, and timber plans almost always call for clearcutting, which many species cannot survive, especially when so many adjacent areas have been clearcut. If you’ve visited a clearcut left be reclaimed by nature or a USFS tree plantation, it’s clear that species diversity has been greatly reduced.

    But being a libertarian environmentalist grounded in private property rights, I echo the Antiplanner’s sentiment and apply it to logging and extraction: rather than shut down all logging and resource extraction, we need to ask what methods have the fewest and least significant impacts. Private land managers (the federal government is the worst land manager imaginable) should then be free to experiment with various ways of sustaining resource extraction.

  8. LazyReader says:

    It’s not a question of how much land is distributed for wildzones. It’s a matter of how much contiguous land is set aside for that purpose. Habitat fragmentation is the discontinuity of a major habitat by development, agriculture or resource extraction. And just because certain species do well in the suburban landscape, MOST DO NOT especially since property owners plant what ever they want in their property rather than observe native plants, look no further than the Hawaiian Honeycreepers, endemic birds to the islands, most of their observed species are extinct thanks to the obliteration of their native food source, Pritchardia palm tree’s which in turn have been obliterated by habitat destruction, planting of non native palms (Coconut, Royal Caribbean palms). Plants and other sessile organisms in areas are usually directly destroyed, and if they’re subspecies or geographically specific, they’re as good as extinct. Mobile animals (especially birds and mammals) retreat into remnant patches of habitat. This can lead to crowding effects and increased competition for food. And fragmented habitats mean animals that migrate vast distances are limited to where they can go, or find mates. That leads to loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding, that’s why cheetah’s and lions are endangered.

    And extremely specific geographic locations are often subject to a specific microclimate so reintroduction of a species to another area even one close by is often impossible. Orchids for example (a hobby of mine), often found in grocery stores the ones commonly sold so an idiot can take care of them; those are the generic hybrids from the genus Phalaenopsis are native to China. True wild orchids can be so specific they may only be found in one particular area of forest and since most are epiphytes , they don’t easily establish in newly planted areas, especially since we know virtually nothing about their mycorrhizal fungi partners, only one species is specific host to a particular species of plant. And that 2,100 year thing is bull. New South Wales, Australia is 312,000 square miles in size and 90% of it’s indigenous plant species have been eliminated. The Great Plains of the US covered over half a million acres almost all of it was covered in prairie grassland and nearly 50-70 million buffalo and it only took John Deere’s plow 50 years to erase most of it.

  9. LazyReader says:

    *Correction* meant to say “Half a million Square Miles”

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