Making the Case
While the WPR region is known for its vast and picturesque open spaces, high mountain ranges, deserts, and grasslands, other issues and trends are overshadowing our western landscape and dominating its headlines. One trend has been a dramatic increase in population as the rate of growth in the West has exceeded the national average for the last four decades. As William R. Travis notes in his 2007 book, New Geographies of the American West, between 1990 …