[sphinx]

P.S. In my long post above, I was talking in generalities. Let me add a few local examples of the kinds of things to which I refer. Here in DC, the NPS owns Fords Theater. It owns the Kennilworth Aquatic Gardens, the Frederick Douglas House, and the remnants of several of the Civil War forts surrounding Washington. It owns Anacostia Park, a floodplain and for most of its history an overlooked, underutilized area that is now being reinvented as the Anacostia corridor is being turned into a major recreational area. The list could be extended.

Washington, of course, is an outlier in terms of the abundance of history and pre-existing federal presence, but sites such as these exist in many places around the country. Instead of the feds acquiring more land out west to add buffer zones to buffer zones to buffer zones, I'd like to see the NPS refocus on smaller, local sites in the east. Whether the site is managed in the long run by the NPS or a local government or private entity is secondary.

As a political matter, I think conservatives need to balance the push for western land preservation with a positive emphasis on local and community parks.

[marron]

I think a distinction can be made between BLM lands, for instance, which are the vast majority of public lands, and park lands, cemeteries, historical properties, and such.

National forests could be kept intact, controlled by the individual states. BLM lands could be simply sold or granted by lottery though I would limit the buyers to US citizens only for a couple of generations.