of war memorials and battlefield sites. States with larger land areas may have a greater supply of parks to declare. The opportunity cost of park designation is not evenly distributed across states. A measure of the amount of vacant (unreserved or В«unappropriatedВ») land in a state may capture the local costs of park creation. Population is also controlled for, although it might be related to both benefits (more people to enjoy the park) and costs (greater opportunity costs from development pressures). The percentage of the state population that is urban should influence park creation. More urban states, all else equal, may not have much local resistance to rural park creation. Moreover, park benefits rise in more urbanized areas. The stat e s geographic region may also capture its potential park endowment or development pressures. Limited political variables are al so included in the model. First, whether or not the state has congressional representation may factor in park creation. For states that had, at the time, only territory status, the local costs and benefits may be overlooked for more national interests. Membership on relevant congressional committees, in the modern congressional era (since 1947), may also directly influence where parks are created. A state s representation on certain committees may make park creation more or less likely, depending on local and national interests in park creation. Committee representation should make parks that serve local interests more likely, while parks in the national interest (with high local opportunity cost) will be less likely. Thus, committee representation may make parks more likely generally, although representatives may use committees to block locally costly park creation. [13]
2. History of the National Parks in the country
1835, the English poet William Wordsworth described the Lake District as a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy.painter George Catlin , in his travels through the American West, wrote during the 1830s that the Native Americans in the United States might be preserved (by some great protecting policy of government) ... in a magnificent park ... A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty! first effort by any government to set aside such protected lands was in the United States, on April twenty, 1832, when President Andrew Jackson signed legislation that the twenty second United States Congress had enacted to set aside four sections of land around what is now Hot Springs, Arkansas to protect the natural, thermal springs and adjoining mountainsides for the future disposal of the US government. It was known as the Hot Springs Reservation. However no legal authority was established and f...
