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A Third of America Belongs to America

A Third of America Belongs to America on HackerTube: recommended by 3 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2018–2020.

CGP Grey

explainer · evergreen

Open on YouTube

CGP Grey explains what it means that a third of the United States is federally owned land. It describes the agencies that manage it and why so much of it is in the western states.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Offered as the quick, clear explainer on US federal land ownership whenever land use in the West comes up.

people recommended it
3
separate months
3
strong recommendations
0
discussed on HN
2018–2020
“You might enjoy CGP Grey's "What is federal land?" [0].”
— closeparen, Jun 2020, in “A Guy Named Craig May Soon Have Control over a Large Swath of Utah”

What HN commenters said

6 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

cbm-vic-20Sep 2020Recommends

CGP Grey did an interesting video on the differences between the agencies that own federal land in the US: ▶ this video (Start from the beginning for more context)

in “The end of dispersed camping?” · View on HN

closeparenJun 2020Recommends

You might enjoy CGP Grey's "What is federal land?" [0]. Making resources available to American industry is one of the government's purposes in owning it. There are certainly disagreements over how well that's balanced against other goals, or against the long term future. But it's not like it's inherently corrupt that federal land is fed into the economy. That's what it's for. [0] ▶ this video

in “A Guy Named Craig May Soon Have Control over a Large Swath of Utah” · View on HN

smegger001Feb 2020Recommends

Yeah CGP Grey had a god video about federal land ownership the majorty of land in western states is federal land. ▶ this video Its kind of ridiculous. how little control states have over the land within their own boarders.

in “Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)” · View on HN

AceJohnny2Feb 2019Cites it

> [1] Bureau of Land Management - kind of like a national forest but where they care less about the land under their control. CGP Grey made a video on the topic recently: ▶ this video

in “Kodak's Discovery of A-Bomb Testing (2016)” · View on HN

mjevansFeb 2019Cites it

Rent control is a bandaid that tries to fix fundamental systemic flaws and lack of planning by society. Problems: They do mention Oregon's land use laws. I didn't see it while skimming but (for west coast states) the land that is actually "state" instead of federal is also an issue (#1). However the biggest issue is that the Supply vs Demand curves for housing are simply insane. Demand is mostly dictated by jobs, and only slightly moderated by the quality of public transit and transportation infrastructure (mass transit AND freeways/parking included). As a nation the US has been housing constrained for at least 20 years, probably longer. Worse for a generation or two housing has been used as an investment rather than the cost center that it is; so all sorts of market incentives are massively messed up. Finally "career" jobs, which allow someone to live in the same house for their entire adult life more or less began a long slow death in the 1980s, which is the true beginning of the destruction of communities. Solutions to consider: Tax, based on land use opportunity cost/value. This should have a built in history consideration that gradually introduces rising land use potential over a number of years. (E.G. sliding window over 10 or 20 years) Tax, transparently, to fund infrastructure, and provide a place (website?) where someone can go to see what their tax dollars are actually being spent on. How they are getting value for services. Zone and re-zone and do urban development

in “Oregon expected to enact first state-wide rent control law” · View on HN

dangoorNov 2018Cites it

Coincidentally, I just learned of the existence of this organization yesterday via CGP Grey's new video about federal land: ▶ this video

in “The FBI of the National Park Service” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Politics & history (other)Environment, agriculture & food systemsfederal landblmnational parksland ownershipunited states