A lot of the dark green in Alaska, Hawaii, and the West is non-residential government owned land. But my in-laws live in Michigan’s upper peninsula, and I can testify that there are wide areas of open, sometimes abandoned space.
Upper Minnesota is covered with national parks, forests and of course, lakes. So this doesn’t mean much there. And as Tasha notes, much of the west is not available for people to live in,as the government would never allow it. What was it you were just saying about making sure you understand the data?
Yes to what everybody’s saying. The big green spot on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington is the Olympic National Park. You might have a few park employees in residence, but very few relative to the acreage involved.
Here’s a picture of federal lands. It does look like it explains most of the west, but if you look between the Rockies and the Mississippi/Missouri, it’s clearly a non-federal empty.
People don’t live in those places either because it’s owned by the government or because nobody wants to live there. Not sure why that fact undermines this chart, which simply shows places where the census population equals zero.
Apt. 11d 
I can really see the rivers and the interstates in Nebraska if you look at that thing.
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A lot of the dark green in Alaska, Hawaii, and the West is non-residential government owned land. But my in-laws live in Michigan’s upper peninsula, and I can testify that there are wide areas of open, sometimes abandoned space.
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Upper Minnesota is covered with national parks, forests and of course, lakes. So this doesn’t mean much there. And as Tasha notes, much of the west is not available for people to live in,as the government would never allow it. What was it you were just saying about making sure you understand the data?
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Yes to what everybody’s saying. The big green spot on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington is the Olympic National Park. You might have a few park employees in residence, but very few relative to the acreage involved.
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Here’s a picture of federal lands. It does look like it explains most of the west, but if you look between the Rockies and the Mississippi/Missouri, it’s clearly a non-federal empty.
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People don’t live in those places either because it’s owned by the government or because nobody wants to live there. Not sure why that fact undermines this chart, which simply shows places where the census population equals zero.
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I’m not sure either. I’m just looking at the old homestead’s area and feeling nostalgic for the prairie.
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Right, no one lives in the Quabbin Reservoir.
People used to live there, but they had to move out when the reservoir was created.
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