Agreed. I was about to post something like that in the "with the explosion of full time" thread, but that thread already has plenty of replies along those lines. I can't believe some people are speculating that a boom in people seeking the Vanlife is going to make authorities more accepting of it. I don't believe it, anyway. Even less property tax revenue for their towns? Even more strange vehicles with the person's entire life in the backseat crowding parking spaces and "blighting" established neighborhoods?
Authorities only tolerate it to a certain degree in some places because it's not very common or they don't have clear rules, but in places where vandwelling is an established thing, like in California, they are clamping down on it big time. Occasionally people complain on behalf of the vandwellers, and the towns and cities "acquiesce" by designating a single parking lot for 20 cars... but they can't facilitate that for thousands, and they won't.
Once more and more people start trying this, states are going to crack down. Businesses will, too. I traveled from one end of the country to the other and was welcomed in every Wal-Mart I stopped at because at any given Wal-Mart, there's only a few rigs in the back of the parking lot. Once half the parking lot is full of vandwellers at night... Wal-Mart is going to stop allowing it.
Now, even if a million more people started vandwelling, there is enough space out West for everyone, but very few new vandwellers are going to go 400 miles off the beaten path in Oklahoma. People are still going to congregate around areas like the Quartzsite area, etc. Once enough trash and problems are created, there will be more restrictions on public land, too, probably.
I believe we're at the twilight of vandwelling, not the dawn.
