I’m slightly confused on the numbers here. According to this article http://bigthink.com/ideas/21343 the federal government owns about 30% of the land in the U.S. However, according to “Collapse” by Jared Diamond the federal government owns “3/4ths of the land in the U.S. mostly under the title national forest”
Either one is too much. The federal government owns a lot of the of the land southwestern states except for Texas.
I would say the fact that people pay property taxes suggests that the government owns all the land and everyone else are renters, regardless of formal title, much like how fascism consists of private ownership in name only while all property is controlled by the state.
+1
But in terms of the state’s exoteric, legislative delineations, it does appear to be closer to 30% than 75%. Unless, of course, you include “subsurface” land rights related to minerals and mining etc, in which case it is more like 75%.
Map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Federalland.gif
Don’t forget state-owned lands… out here in the Northwest, states are major land-owners. Furthermore, even on “privately owned” forest land, the state exercises total control over the licensing of when stands of trees can legally be cut (supposedly to prevent “over-logging”, “deforestation” and “erosion”). I would be willing to bet that the effectively public lands in the state of Oregon is nearer to 90% than 75%. That might seem like an insane number until you pull off a major highway and try driving around the backwoods… every few miles you will run into a steel gate and sign-posts identifying which government bureaucracy controls the lands behind it.
Clayton -