[hinckley buzzard]

Your critique is quite anachronistic. Given the zeitgeist of the time and the virtually total absence of regulation or restraint, the qualities that made the parklands worthy of preservation in the first place would have been obliterated.

[AUH2O Repub]

Private business would have run the places properly. Still would. Think they would have killed the goose laying the golden egg?

[cripplecreek]

I tend to agree. Granted most land in the US should be in private hands but the states and Feds did a service by preserving some really great places. I’d really hate to see our state and national parks turned into tourist traps with flashy signs and all the trappings.

That said, the feds these days seem to be interested in making access ever more restricted. I suspect there are many like Al Gore who would happily restrict all access to wilderness to authorized biologists and VIPs like themselves.