Slab City; is it wilderness?

About an hour outside of Palm Desert in California lies Slab City. It is a society all of it’s own that doesn’t conform to any traditional rules, has no source of power, and no running water. People have traveled here to live freely from any form of Government regulation. Although the Bureau of Land Management technically owns the land, the people who reside here are doing so illegally. I wanted to pose the question of whether or not someone could refer to this area as wilderness. Although congress declared a wilderness are as a place where humans do not remain, and are only visitors when they passed the Wilderness Act of 1964, there are many controversial and subjective opinions about what can technically be categorized as “Wilderness.” For the majority of human history, humans developed skills to survive based on a connection to the land. When we evolved passed this stage, we lost something very important, a connection to each other and an understanding of ourselves. To the people who live here, it’s the last free place; a place without rules, rent, or repercussions. Those who call this place home have are either runaways or have fell victim to the recently tanking economy. These people have learned to reconnect with the land. They scavenge and barter with each other to survive in the wild.