Public Lands in the West - Magnets for Population Growth

Federal Lands in the U.S.
The largest landowner in the United States is the American people through their national government. Just within the 48 contiguous states there are about 810,000 square miles of land under some type of federal ownership and management. About 90 percent of these lands are in the 11 western states (CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, NV, UT, CO, AZ, and NM).
Federal lands by major type are shown in the maps. In the top map, the red dots show population density at the time of the 2000 Census (500 people per dot). Proximity to these lands is an important factor shaping recent migration patterns in the West, particularly in areas outside of major metropolitan centers. The chart below shows rates of population change for various types of counties outside of major cities and their surrounding areas in the 11 Western states. Recent population growth is shown for largely non-metro areas of the West nearby these lands, including large and small regional population centers (counties with relatively small cities), counties adjacent to counties with these small cities (“city fringe” counties), and more isolated and rural counties. Counties of these three types are further classified based upon their proximity to different mixes of federal lands – lands with national park service (NPS) lands that also sometimes have nearby forest service (FS) and/or Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands; lands with forest service lands that also sometimes have nearby BLM lands; and BLM lands only. Population trends for the three types of counties in areas without any federal lands (“No Public Lands”) also are shown in the chart.
 
Areas nearby public lands are generally seeing higher rates of population growth than similar areas that aren’t nearby any public lands. For counties with small cities, population growth in the ‘90s averaged 25% for those nearby some NPS lands, almost 18% for those with FS and BLM lands, a little over 23% for those with BLM lands only, and less than 11% for those without any public lands of any type. For city-fringe counties, growth averaged 23% for those nearby some NPS lands, 19% for those with some FS lands, 18% for those with BLM lands only, and less than 7% for those with no federal lands. And for isolated rural counties, those nearby NPS lands grew by just over19%, those with FS lands grew by just under 19%, those with BLM lands only grew by less than 18%, and those with no federal lands grew by just under 12%.

Population growth in the non-metro West has increased in recent years, particularly in areas nearby high amenity federal lands. Being nearby lands with these kinds of amenities is becoming more important to more and more people, drastically altering historical migration patterns.

- Source: Larry Swanson, O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, U. of Montana