chizzle

Ok, I will admit...that is a good point. However, we need to keep places like Montana and our National & State Parks virtually untouched.

It was all beautiful land like that until we turned it into huge cities reaking of pollution.

Cynthetiq

Remember LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.

Liquor Dealer once posted on why he'd never be interested in living in New York City. It's one of the most densly populated places in the world. But as far as I'm concerned the quality of life that I lead here surpasses what I can get in Montana. I can take public transportation. I can walk to parks, theater, libraries, concerts, restaurants, shops, and museums. I cannot do any of that in Montana.

I grew up in Los Angeles, I went to National Parks all my llife, and I still love to go to them. Places grow because that's what happens. People who like to live in small towns, well that mentality picks up from growing towns and moves further out. In my lifetime, I have watched the desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas grow from tumbleweed territory to bumper to bumper traffic of Banana Republic/GAP/Starbucks gentrification.

Back to New York.... back in the 1600's NY was a wilderness area, with streams, mountains, trees, and wildlife. It took a couple hundred years to get it to as crowded as it is today. Some streams still exist underneath the towers of Manhattan, they just run across on concrete conduits. I can tell you that some of the people who lived in New York were responsible for some of the abilities to get into the interiors of the United States easily and profitably.

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TaLoN

i don't mean to sound like hitler here, but our only hope is to kill anyone that scores low on tests of intelligence and physical ability. only the strong/smart should survive

chizzle

So you do agree then that we are crowded and overpopulated? or not?

Cynthetiq

Studies, (i'm trying to locate them) have shown that urban sprawl is happening but it isn't encroaching on the National Parks. There is still plenty of space here inside the US to develop other cities. Go to the Bureua of Land Management and you will find that just in the Western United States there is still plenty of undeveloped land.



I know some people who commute from Pennsylvania all the way to New York City taking about 2.5 hours of commuting time daily. I know some others on Long Island who do about the same level as well. Both of them stated to me their choice was because cost of home ownership and quality of life, but their incomes were based on NYC salaries because they could not secure local employment.

There are also cases of people in the San Francisco area who drive about 4 hours daily to commute to their jobs. So yes, there is urban sprawl. Yes, there is crowding, but I would not say that NYC or SF is overcrowded or overpopulated.

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chizzle

As clever as that might sound...it would cause lots of problems and probably wouldn't be the "right" thing to do. For every action their is a reaction. I think it would piss of the familys of the murdered and might leave the rest with a guilty conscious.

I think the best thing to do is provide free birth control education to every nation in the world. Free condoms and birth control should be distributed regularly.

I heard something disturbing the other day. Russia has an average of 1 condom per person, per year or something like that. Russia is bad off financially but, they are not considered third world (are they?)

Imagine how bad it is in Africa and places like that where most the population has HIV and they are reproducing like crazy.

They already don't have enough food to feed the existing, let alone enough food to feed the existing's offspring. It is natural to want to have sex...we are sexual creatures...but, we must provide birth control to control world population.

Cynthetiq

I do think that you need to edit your premise and clarify just what your topic encompasses. It's pretty broad, I thought originally you were only talking about the US, but globally is slightly different.

I see that you are well traveled. Looking at this from a larger global perspective, it's not just about people staying to one place or area, but it's about land habitablility and the ability for people to survive on those lands. If you were to talk about Iceland, well there is not that much habitable land, but what is habitable tends to attract more people. Taken to a global perspective, it seems to be along those same lines.

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lurkette

Overpopulation isn't (necessarily) about space - we've got plenty of space for new people. It's about resources. How much land does it take to house new people, pave their roads, build their schools, keep up with the rising Western standard of living, and especially, grow their food. The problem with overpopulation isn't necessarily in Western countries, either, where the population growth rate is generally even or negative. It's in developing nations where there are already too few resources to take care of existing populations. Overpopulation destabilizes these societies and leads to violence, famine, yadda yadda yadda.

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Phaenx

More food for the wild animals. Plus, with all the civil war and slaughters going on there, Africa is rarely a problem unless we go there to try and "fix" it. The HIV is taking it's toll as well, so I wouldn't worry about overpopulation there.

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chizzle

Well said Lurkette, I agree with you 100%!

Rodney

The resources idea is good -- not so much how many people, but what kind of drain they are on the planet's resources. If we've got the resources to keep going indefinitely at this population, the world is not overpopulated. But if we're burning through resources faster than they're created, we are overpopulated. And I think the latter case is true.

As to why certain areas are overpopulated -- because that's where the money is. Major metro areas are centers of money, wealth, and economic activity: meaning, you can get a job, if not always buy a house. In Montana, buying a house would be cheap -- but getting a job? The economy there is small, it probably can't support any more people than the ones who live there now, unless they bring their own jobs with them or choose to retire there (don't need jobs).

There are big cultural and social advantages to the big city, but it's the big city economy that keeps people there. If there was some way to decentralize the economy more -- if more people didn't necessarily have to live near their employers -- you'd see the inhabitants of major metro areas spread out across the U.S. faster like a bag of ball bearings thrown onto a hardwood floor. Big city money, small-town expenses -- yeah, that'd do it.

yournamehere

Sorry to disagree with some of you, but we're <i>already</i> past the point where we can expect the resources of the world to satisfactorily sustain us at a decent standard of living.

If we took all the resources of the world and distributed them equally among everyone living, do you have any idea what a shitty standard of living we'd have?

Overpopulation alone isn't the problem, though - it's man's inherent tendencies to favor the good of the individual (himself) over the good of the many that has, and will , lead to our downfall. If this piques your interest at all, I suggest you read <i>The Tragedy of the Commons,"</i> a short essay on our greedy nature. Here's a <A HREF="http://www.constitution.org/cmt/tragcomm.htm">link</A>. Go ahead - it's a good read.

In a nutshell, it states that if a village field (commons) has enough forage to sustain a herd of 20 cattle, and there are 20 families in the village - each with one cow, everyone in the the village will fare well. However, being human, it's only a matter of time before one or more of the villagers realizes that with a second cow, he would be twice as well off, and - even though the good of his village will suffer (because the commons can't support 21 cows - only 20) he'll acquire the second cow anyway - favoring his individual benefit over the losses of the village - even though he is part of the village. This is because the positive aspect of adding another cow to the commons is his alone, while the negative aspect is shared by all 20 families

Now - imagine if the village only had 10 families. Then <i>every</i> family could have 2 cows. Of course, it's only a matter of time before someone would want three . . . . . or four . . .

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brad-va

How about looking at who is reproducing to cause the population growth. It seems that the people NOT reproducing are more often the very busy professionals who care more about money than family (ie: intelligent people). if this is true, the the population growth is leading to an overall less intelligent population.

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soapysonic

It is easier that that sir. Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal?

maxero

when it gets too overpopulated, a plague comes and solves your problems.

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cough

Sun Tzu

Overpopulation may be taken care of naturally with plagues and such; but as the future moves forward so will medicine which will contribute to a future problem. (a far future problem)

THere will come a day that there will be a populus to big for sustaining life. The far future of the human race rests in the hopeful discovery of wormhole manipulation.

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Destrox

I"m happy right now living in PA without a shitload of population.

I'll take nature ANYDAY over neighbors.

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HaloLauren

There is nothing more beautiful than New York City in the morning. Forests be screwed!

jeenyus

think thats overpopulation? No way man, China is wayyyy overpopulated. it makes Pennsylyvania look like nothing