“Out here in the west we are just a repository for natural resources for everyone else. Let them strip mine Maryland or some other pesthole state for a change.”
I agree. The West is just the colony of the Eastern states.
Arizona? It isn’t what’s on the map. After you subtract the federal preserves, Indian reservations, and federal preserves, about all that the people of Arizona really control are strips of land along the highways.
Actually, if it wasn’t for the mineral exploitation, there wouldn’t have been any Arizone. From the Spanish to the Mexicans to the Gadsden Purchase, gold, silver and particularly copper were the reason behind most of the growth. Yes, there was some agriculture, cotton, beef and timber but they were dependent on the infrastructure the mines were behind. There are still some beautiful country that virtually no one knows about. For instance the Galiuro Mountains and the Gila Wilderness are amazing.