Most countrysides look somewhat like that. At least the one i was forced to grow up in. Sure, there are lots of plants but nevertheless the land is ecologically dead because there's only a few species (mostly 3 different subspecies of corn). Sure there are some trees but i think the trees feel as lonely as i did when i lived there.
If you want to live in nature, go to the mountains or some place that has large bodies of water nearby (lakes, rivers, ocean). That's where the actual life is.
It's because of a mixture of landscape reasons. Large flat areas are attractive to farming, so that's what's being done. On the other side, mountains are unattractive for that because the big machines can't drive over uneven soil. Similarly, large waters host a ton of biodiversity because water is the origin of all life, and you can really feel that. Just give it a try.
That's because it's Appalachia. Try Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Montana
It's mainly because of the ski resorts afaik. But yes, that's fair.
No, it is because building in remote areas is expensive.
If you're building a brand new house you're already outside the realm of affordability. In general, rural areas have an excess of housing stock due to the strong trend of urbanization over the past century.
Also, the fact that building in remote areas is expensive doesn't contradict the fact that ski resorts drive massive real estate inflation in the surrounding areas.
Ski resorts count for an extremely small portion of mountainous areas. It is like saying housing in cities is expensive because of golf courses.
Agree to disagree. Shutdown all the ski resorts in Colorado and see what happens to property values over the next 20 years. The proportion of land might be small, but the population and monetary influx is massive.
In order for housing to be expensive, people need to have the money to pay for it. If there's no high paying jobs within hundreds of miles, and there's no tourism money, the demand simply won't be there and prices will fall. Again, look at the Appalachians and the Adirondacks for example. Ever since the advent of air travel, they've been steadily depopulated and economically depressed, as people from the cities prefer to vacation in more remote locations, such as the Rockies.
I should also acknowledge that a lot of land out west is owned by the government or other major groups, and that probably also plays a role. I'm not as familiar with the real estate market of Wyoming as I'd like to be. But I can't help but dispute your assertion that prices are high because building is expensive. Seems like a tautology somehow.