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I was looking at a website called NumbersUSA NumbersUSA | For Lower Immigration Levels (http://www.numbersusa.com/content/ - broken link)
This organization's main goal is to limit immigration into America and reduce our population growth. I am conflicted on this.
On one hand one only has to look at California and see the impact of rapid immigration and population growth. I remember living in CA in the 1970s when you could go to any community college or State University for free and the sales tax was 4% (it is now 8.5%). The lifestyle was free and easy and only 20 million people lived in the whole State. (95% of the people lived on 2% of the land) Now there is 45 million.
Here in Oregon the population of metro Portland has doubled since the 1970s.
On the other hand I flew over the entire country recently on a very clear day and hardly saw a town or a building until I got east of the Mississippi.
They say America will have another 200 million people by 2050. Is there room?
Yeah, there's plenty of room. With smarter growth, our country can hold a large portion more people comfortably without too much trouble. The growth would just have to be in some of the smaller cities (focusing on increasing use of already developed areas).
Texas' water problems are not going to be too big of a deal. One of the largest underground aquifers in the world sits below TX, OK, KS, and NE. There's already someone trying to sell the DFW area on the idea of buying water from it and having a pipeline system established. Dallas thinks it can solve the issue without piping in water, at least for now they do. I think it would be a great idea to have a back up plan though, in case of a long lasting, severe drought.
As far as space goes though, yes, 200million more will fit. I would hope we start doing a lot smarter things with all of our resources though. Food will have to be available on a much more efficient supply than it is now.
I was looking at a website called NumbersUSA NumbersUSA | For Lower Immigration Levels (http://www.numbersusa.com/content/ - broken link)
This organization's main goal is to limit immigration into America and reduce our population growth. I am conflicted on this.
On one hand one only has to look at California and see the impact of rapid immigration and population growth. I remember living in CA in the 1970s when you could go to any community college or State University for free and the sales tax was 4% (it is now 8.5%). The lifestyle was free and easy and only 20 million people lived in the whole State. (95% of the people lived on 2% of the land) Now there is 45 million.
Here in Oregon the population of metro Portland has doubled since the 1970s.
On the other hand I flew over the entire country recently on a very clear day and hardly saw a town or a building until I got east of the Mississippi.
They say America will have another 200 million people by 2050. Is there room?
There's a reason for that. Well, two reasons. One, there is slope and aspect considerations when it comes to the Rocky Mountain states. We can't build within areas where the terrain is too radical. But more importantly, water, and access to it, will become the big driver when it comes to future population settlements. Forget about peak oil: peak water will make this epidemic look like child's play. And therein lies the problem with regard to future settlement. The entire desert southwest is the first to be threatened, and other areas with low and small groundwater tables (such as much of Florida) will be next.
Where our founding fathers originally settled, (i.e. the Northeast) is the area of the country suited to take in much of the population. Unfortunately, this is the area that is most densely populated. So, in conclusion, I'd have to say that one more person as far as I am concerned is too many. I believe we are already on the precipice of a major crisis.
If you could convince everyone to live in Hong Kong and Singapore type Cities in the future there would be plenty of room. But due to human nature and economics most people will continue to want space and will fill in and sprawl all over the place adding to greenhouse gases, tree loss and reduce farm land. Also Americans use alot more energy than people in other countries so 200 million more Americas will cause more global warming and other environmental issues than a similar amount of people living in South America.
oh please no more people! the city i live in is sooo overcrowded. we need to get rid of alot of people already here
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