It sounds like the parcels for sale all differ in terms of how they can be developed. I’m guessing you have the background to comment on this more than I do. Some parcels are outside the park (i.e. Gettysburg) and people think development, either residential or commercial, would degrade the quality of the experience inside. Other parcels are inside (i.e. South Carolina’s relatively new NP) and the park service feels a developed parcel, whether single McMansion or development of McMansions, would take away from the visitor’s experience. There’s just something inherently wrong with development in a national park. Either we set aside land as a national park or we don’t. There should be no middle ground.

This looks really interesting—looking forward to reading it.  Does it mention whether or not the privately owned lands in the parks still have development rights, or whether landowners have access to infrastructure like sewer and water and roads? If the development rights were sold to a land trust or the government, then it’s safe from development, but I didn’t get far enough in the report to see if that’s the case.  Also, the land might be zoned so that it’s all but impossible to build there, on one unit per fifty acres, say, but I doubt it (a lot of rural land is one unit per four acres, just small enough for a McMansion…) Anyway, good eagle eye on this.