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National park designation can both help—and hinder—our wild spaces.

54 million acres of federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management aren’t meeting the agency’s own land-health standards.

“We wanted to create a map to show where help is most needed,” Hernandez said. “Rural communities are failing to compete with higher-capacity cities for funding and resources no matter the gravity of their situations.”

As land prices have climbed, so have housing and rental costs. Headwaters said “communities across the country, in every state, are grappling with prices increasing at a rate not seen before, even during the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession.”

Some new data indicated some rural communities that could be left behind in the infrastructure bill.

New homes that meet wildfire-resistant codes can be constructed for roughly the same cost as a typical home and have additional benefits, such as a longer lifecycle and less maintenance, according to a 2018 report from the Montana-based research group Headwaters Economics. 

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress is directing a historic amount of funds to climate resilience. But some rural communities risk being left behind on these investments.

“Recreation destinations on average have seen larger price increases than nonrecreation destinations,” said Megan Lawson, a housing economist with Bozeman, Montana’s Headwaters Economics, which studies the West. 

The CPI captures how much consumers in urban areas spend on goods and services, with the key word being “urban.” It misses some of the nuance of rural life, according to Megan Lawson with Headwaters Economics.  

Neighborhoods at Risk is a free online tool that allows anyone to search what their hometown’s climate change risks are.

‘Neighborhoods at Risk’ helps you learn about potential flooding, heat waves, and other threats to your community.

In her research, Lawson has found that across the West people are moving to counties with recreation opportunities more quickly than to other places — and there’s faster job growth in those towns. But if you pull apart the numbers there is darkness there. Abundant growth doesn’t always lead to equitable growth.

Communities across the nation are vying for funds from the $1 trillion federal infrastructure package. Some of that money is designed to address wildfire, drought, floods and other climate-induced crises, but many small rural communities in our region lack the tools to get that money, like planning departments, broadband access, and civic engagement. 

The Forest Service unveils its final forest plan for one of the country’s most ecologically, economically and culturally diverse national forests.

“At the end of the day, being able to plan proactively and do resilience planning is a privilege. Most communities do not have the resources.”

In California, as in much of the world, climate anxiety and climate futurism coalesce into trans-apocalyptic pessimism. But, in spite of the doom, Weil suggests the situation is not completely devoid of hope.

Kristin Smith, a researcher with Headwaters Economics, spends her time running the numbers and said that the billion-dollar estimate on the cost of the Marshall fire is only the beginning.

“The full cost of a wildfire is not just about property damage,” she said. “With any disaster, there are rippling impacts that people tend to overlook.”

“What we’re starting to see is that affordable housing can no longer be ignored,” said Headwaters economist Megan Lawson. “There are more people recognizing the need to get involved in this conversation, especially big employers.”

Those cities saw median home values rise by more than 20% last year according to an analysis from the nonprofit Headwaters Economics in Montana. Megan Lawson, an economist with that group, said she doesn’t expect housing prices to collapse anytime soon. But she does think they’ll eventually slow down and stabilize.

Kimiko Barrett, who studies wildfire at Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit that aims to make “complex data understandable” so others can make better decisions around land use, helped snap this into focus for me one afternoon. We have, she said, “a home-ignition problem, more than a wildland-fire problem.” So simple, yet such a profound shift. Until we accept this, we’re going to remain deluded and stuck.