My thoughts are mixed as I type this from my house, built on 13 acres we bought from the "gubbermint" 16 years ago. In our case, it was sold by the Kenai Peninsula Borough (local county), they having been granted it by the State of Alaska, the State having gotten lands from the Federal Government as part of Alaska Statehood (although the process hasn't yet been completed and is still ongoing: Fed to State and State to Local).
In our case, it was "in-fill" – there were already residential parcels on 3 sides (and ocean on the fourth) so it didn't create a new tendril of urbanization and gray infrastructure into wild lands. Broadly, the State and Boroughs like land in private hands because then there is a larger tax base for Boroughs and cities and therefore a lower mill rate on other properties. Also, the pave-the-state types see any development as pro-jobs, pro-business, and certainly I bought more building supplies and labor hours than if I hadn't built anything, but no more than if I'd bought a lot from existing private land. And there wasn't any great recreational use of the land prior to sale. And it sold at market price – a public auction – and we were the high bidder.
But I suspect the more contentious issues will be sweet-heart deals with large resource developers ("drill, baby, drill!") at below-market prices, that carve up larger tracts of wilderness. In general, I observe the following:
– It is harder to create new, contiguous tracts of wilderness than it is to break them up,
– The administrations / congressional majorities most likely to sell off land are the last ones I'd want to set the price, policies or conditions of such sales.
– Virtually all natural resources (oil, coal, timber, metals) are fungible – meaning you can get money for them or buy them with money. Helium (hard to separate and we have almost all the world's supply) and natural gas (hard to pipe from place to place and bothersome to liquify and ship) are exceptions, but we currently have a glut of natural gas. I'd rather we NOT mine and pump our natural resources while the Saudis, Russians, and others are so eager to sell theirs. I'd rather leave our resources in the ground for our grandchildren to use.
– especially since our grandchildren will probably extract and use those resources more wisely. In a 80-mpg hybrid instead of a 11-mpg F-350. With cleaner mining and drilling techniques. With stricter emissions rules.
