I hope you weren't directing this to me. My property was abandoned as an apple orchard 75 years ago. When I bought it, it was covered with French broom, eucalyptus, acacia, rotting oaks, and impacted second growth redwood. It was a massive fire hazard. Those exotics are ALL gone. I have thinned almost all of my acreage along with a buffer on my neighbor's property. It has taken twelve years of brutal work. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars correcting drainage problems due to crappy county roads and stupid tilling practices on the part of the farmer. I spend over a thousand hours a year weeding. I cliimb and top redwood and crappy fir trees. Will you do that? While you were writing that post I was mulching with chopped oak tops (no seed) on a 60% slope after planting iris macrosiphon, sword ferns, coastal wood ferns, hairy honeysuckle, native blackberry, goldback ferns, epilobium, and monkeyflower.
I have published a book containing economic analyses of the very process of rural suburbanization of timberland extending over thirty years on an inflation adjusted, opportunity cost basis. Don't lecture me about that phenomenon.
I live in the city still but watch with amusement when folks flee to the country. They complain about the cow smell next door. One guy in a new suburb here called the fire department when a neighbor burned leaves. Firefighters explained that's allowed out in the county.
Some of us aging yuppies know what we are doing. Nature isn't going to get better on its own. It takes intimate knowledge of the land. It takes immediate access on an almost daily basis to control some weeds. It costs a bundle. So if somebody isn't going to live on these abandoned farmlands, who the hell is going to fix this mess?