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If you visit National Parks, you are a bad person

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Sep 6, 2013.

  1. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    What's the problem again?

    The National Park Service released 2012 numbers, and they said 282 million people have visited a national park that year.

    That's an increase over the 2011 numbers and the sixth highest total of all time.

    This website, http://www.gadling.com/2013/04/04/national-park-service-releases-2012-attendance-numbers/, has the 10 most popular.

    The top five are:
    Great Smoky Mountains National Park (9,685,829)
    Grand Canyon National Park (4,421,352)
    Yosemite National Park (3,853,404)
    Yellowstone National Park (3,447,729)
    Rocky Mountain National Park (3,229,617)

    And quite frankly, I don't want wifi while I'm camping. Getting away means getting away, not tethered to an electronic leash. I suspect I'm not in the minority on that sentiment.

    I also haven't been to any of the parks on the top 10, but I have been to others. One, as a matter of fact, is about 45 minutes away from the house.
     
  2. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    Let's just plant some trees and wildflowers on the thousands of acres of empty lots and turn Detroit into a National Park. Problem solved.
     
  3. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    You'd be amazed how many private campgrounds offer wifi now.
     
  4. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Yep. There's a name for it -- it's called "glamping."
     
  5. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    The problem:

    Only about one in five visitors to a national park site is nonwhite, according to a 2011 University of Wyoming report commissioned by the Park Service, and only about 1 in 10 is Hispanic — a particularly lackluster embrace by the nation’s fastest-growing demographic group.

    And, you're wrong about wifi:

    But the new effort goes further, to the question of how, and how much, the parks themselves must change to attract a fundamentally different audience. Wireless access, for example — still nonexistent in much of the Park Service universe — could divide older park visitors from minorities and young people, the so-called millennial generation, who want to share the experience live in social media with their peers.

    “Boomers maybe want to get away, and millennials want to be connected; that changes how you use the space,” said Laura Swapp, REI’s director of diversity and inclusion. Music events could be another potential generational dividing line — peace and quiet versus entertainment — but would also draw the demographic the Park Service is after, Ms. Swapp said.

    ...

    The natural beauty of Olympic National Park and Second Beach, though, was unquestioned and overwhelming, she and the others said. “Photographer’s heaven,” Ms. Serafin said as she began snapping shots.

    Live posts mostly had to wait, though. The park’s Internet connection was too slow.


    Younger folks want to share their experiences on social networking platforms.

    And, by not offering it, the Parks lose their best potential marketing tool. People aren't Intagraming and tweeting pictures from the parks.
     
  6. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Only about 1 in 5 Americans is non-white, right? So that seems pretty much on-point.
     
  7. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I forgot my phone
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8&feature=player_embedded

    When me and my friends go camping, we try to find places that don't even have cell phone service.

    We aren't Luddites, we still pack a satellite radio and a TV but instant access isn't what we are looking for.

    But, oh boy, I can't wait to go see Old Faithful in a few years after wifi is installed and have a bunch of fucking teenagers taking selfies and clickity clacking away on their phones as they constantly tweet.

    Hooray for technology! Can't wait!
     
  8. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Congratulations. You are the 1%.
     
  9. britwrit

    britwrit Well-Known Member


    So secondary picketing, no restrictions on how large picket lines can be and general, industry-wide strikes are on the menu here?
     
  10. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    If we're going to privatize National Parks, as some here seem to want, what shouldn't be privatized?
     
  11. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Well, what does government do well? We could start there.

    In this case, the NPS admits it hasn't been able to solve this problem 40 years after identifying it.
     
  12. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    So this one "problem" is big enough to sell the National Mall in DC and Yellowstone and Yosemite and all the rest?

    Should National Forests be sold too? How about the National Rivers?
     
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