Two New York Times stories today on remote places--and how they are changing

The first, by Julie Turkewitz, is out of Idaho, about rich people buying up extraordinarily large tracts of land and denying the public access, which they previously enjoyed.  The headline is "Who Gets to Own the West?  A new group of billionaires is shaking up the landscape," and the dateline is Idaho City, Idaho (population 485 but part of the Boise-Nampa Metropolitan Statistical Area).   Here's an overview of the trend as reflected in data:

• 100 families own 42 million acres across the county, 65,000 square miles.
• the amount of land those 100 families own has increased 50% since 2007.

Featured in the story are the Wilks brothers, who are high school drop outs who made their fortune in fracking. They now some about 700,000 acres in save states, and they're using their newfound power to block access not only to their own property, but also to some publicly owned areas.

Retired columnist for the Idaho Statesman, Rocky Barker, explains that the conflict is

a “clash between two American dreams,” pitting the nation’s respect for private property rights against the notion of a beauty-rich public estate set aside for the enjoyment of all.

He calls the "big landowners ...just another force" and cites other dichotomies shaping the change, that between extraction-based economies on the one hand and those grounded in  recreation, as well as the conflict between "working class" and money.  That conflict, as well as the rural living/culture angle, is highlighted in this excerpt about 58-year-old Tim Horting, who grew up in this part of Idaho "chop[ping] wood, gut[ting] deer, and haul[ing] game home for dinner."  The Hortings built a cabin in 2006 near Boise Ridge Road, which provided access to a recreation area mostly on public land:

The Hortings said they wanted their grandchildren to grow up with a feel for rural life. “This is the whole reason I moved here,” Mr. Horting said. For years, he assumed the road was public, and he would guide his ATV up its steep ascent, his grandchildren in tow.            

Now, however, the Wilks brothers have bought land near and surrounding the Hortings' property and have put up gates, fences and "no trespassing" signs, including on Boise Ridge Road.  Here's a very ominous part of the story, at least from the standpoint of law because it implicates the relationship between wealth and access to justice:

In some places, the Wilkses’ road closings were legal. In other cases, it wasn’t clear. Road law is a tangled knot, and Boise County had little money to grapple with it in court. So the gates stayed up. 

Horting summarizes the problem(s): 

[It] is not the fact that they own the property. It’s that they’ve cut off public roads. 

We’re being bullied.  We can’t compete and they know it.

And there you have another story of rural gentrification, of the disempowerment of regular rural folks--those Turkewitz characterized as "working class."  Note that this story does not appear to implicate racial advantage (though many stories of gentrification--rural or urban--will).   This is simply a story where wealth (not only income) wins out on a large scale.  One reason wealth wins is its ability to dictate legal outcomes--or at least litigate the other party into bankruptcy, should the "other party" decide to fight back.
                                                                                                                                                     
The other story I want to highlight is headlined "The Land Where the Internet Ends." It is about Green Bank, WV (population 143), home of the Green Bank Observatory and surrounding National Radio Quiet Zone, which covers some 13,000 square miles.  Pagan Kennedy writes:

[The observatory is] a cluster of radio telescopes in a mountain valley. Conventional telescopes are like superpowered eyes. The instruments at Green Bank are more like superhuman ears — they can tune into frequencies from the lowest to the highest ends of the spectrum.

The image most associated with this area is the massive polar-aligned telescope, which is featured in several photos that accompany this op-ed.

Yes, Green Bank is remote, but Kennedy's musings are primarily about a different kind of isolation, that which comes from being cut off from cell service and WiFi.  Here's one part of Kennedy's musing that arguably reflects rural living and rural culture:

I came in hopes of finding a certain kind of wildness and solitude. I live in Massachusetts, and I often disappear into the forests and rivers to clear my head. I’ve always loved the moment when the bars on my phone disappear.

* * *

To experience the deepest solitude, you need to enter the land where the internet ends.

Ten years ago, it was easy to do that. But lately, even in the backwoods, my cellphone springs to life, clamoring for attention.

The off-grid places are disappearing.

* * *

It’s likely that in 10 or so years, the country will be blanketed with signal, from sea to shining sea.  

And while that will be a loss for those seeking to be truly off the grid, Kennedy concedes it is a necessity, as access to broadband has become as indispensable as access to electricity and running water.