But if you want to buy a rural cabin on a beautiful mountain, it’s available, and cheap. You don’t need to go to Asia to live like a hermit.
Obviously America refers to the continent, so I'll use the shorthand country name "the US" instead.
> is the best
That may be true, but I do wonder if it was a lucky accident. What if the Irish famine hadn't happened? What if WW2 had been averted (but maybe the EU wouldn't exist...).
> rural cabin
That's nice, but what value is it if the forest burns down, the lake is polluted, the wild life is dead, and there's nothing left but neighboring land full of fracking wells? Glory to god.
Similarly, I would argue that you should not underestimate the harmful and wide-reaching effects of industry.
It is? Not in the US!
IIUC, the land that is unutilized or has forest, is either protected, too hilly, too dry, etc.
There are a few farms remaining in New England, yes, but in general farmers consider the soil there not worth farming compared to places like Iowa and Southern Illinois (where all the land really is utilized for farming) even though in the past most the (sizeable) population of New England made a living farming.
We know that most of the forest in New England is suitable for farming because there are still stone walls running through it: these wall were made of stones encountered by farmers while plowing (when the forest was farmland).