In Vegas, for example, developers trade the BLM land surrounding the city for more environmental valuable private land up North acre for acre. So it benefits both the BLM and the developers.

Utah’s main limit to expansion, as someone in the industry, is the availability of water. If there’s a farm on the land now then there’s the water for development. You can’t just build homes in the West Desert unless you secure the water from somewhere else. Once the Wasatch front farmland is built in (and we’re getting close) we’re out of available water.