Hinterland Ahoy!
September 29, 2005
Why do so many Americans live on our three coasts, especially in areas subject to hurricanes and earthquakes, when they could freeze and swelter in the comparative safety of the central states? Joel Kotkin offers an unusual answer in a recent WSJ article.
More broadly, as a nation, we may want to consider ways to encourage greater development further inland. Americans have been crowding into the coasts for generations, even though one of our great assets is the broad interior hinterland. Our continued population growth — from 310 million now to 400 million by 2050 — may make repopulating the hinterlands more economically viable. Instead of offering “homesteads” or funds for repeated rebuildings on the crowded, and sometimes dangerous, coasts — particularly in below-sea-level New Orleans — it might make more sense to encourage settlement and investment deeper into our nation’s interior.
This was the essence of much of 19th-century federal policy, which gave incentives for canals and railroads, as well as providing cheap or free land on the Plains. This could also bring new life to parts of country that have been losing jobs and people for a generation, but may now be ready for revival. With the Internet and small-jet travel, some of these areas, such as the Dakotas, are already showing signs of becoming more competitive in the national and global economy. It is a trend worth boosting, and may come to be the most attractive strategic lesson to emerge from Katrina and Rita.
Mr. Kotkin, an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of “The City: A Global History” (Modern Library, 2005).
Our Government is expert at providing economic incentives to influence our behavior, mostly in perverse ways, unfortunately. For instance, we subsidize cotton and sugar production to guarantee that we will pay the highest prices for these commodities, and we keep marginal tax rates high to discourage the entrepreneurs that fuel our economy. You get the idea.
If it is really beneficial for the country as a whole to more evenly distribute our population (and I wouldn’t want to bet that it is), Mr. Kotkin’s ideas make a lot of sense.
Dave, not really wanting more neighbors.
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I’m all for letting the coasts and deserts serve as a population magnet, leaving the Midwest residents with plenty of elbow room.