[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by michigan83

Actually, I think a lot of residents from the most populated part of New Hampshire, the southern part, commute to Massachusetts for work at high paying jobs. For this reason, I would bet that New Hampshire residents are more likely to be employed in a high tech field than Michigan residents. This doesn't necessarily disprove your point or prove mine, just something that I thought of after you posted.

That places the burden of having a higher population on Massachusetts then. That'd be like if most Michiganders commuted to Chicago for work. Still, I'm pretty sure most people would get tired of that commute pretty quickly, even if there could possibly be little congestion. You win some, you lose some, in the end.

[MackOnMack]

What I'm about to say doesn't add to any side of the argument, but this really did enrage me when I saw this last night.

Detroit, MI - Forbes

I just like to see "credible" sources of content have their facts right. Forbes has the population for Metro Detroit listed at 1,791,400 million. It's media like Forbes, which I usually like to read, that are making everyone think negative about Detroit. For you other Michiganders outside of the Detroit area, the negative image of Detroit rubs off on the rest of the state. Yes, I feel like a wrong stat of the Metro Population is a sign of how Forbes and other media feel about Metro Detroit.

Indianapolis, IN - Forbes

Here is Indianapolis's Forbes profile, and the metro population is listed at 1,802,000. For anyone and everyone that has been to both metros, you should easily be able to tell how much bigger the Detroit Metro is than the Indianapolis Metro.

It just angers me to see that Forbes stat of the Detroit Metro population is misleading the readers that have never been to Metro Detroit, or maybe never will be in Metro Detroit.

[animatedmartian]

They use the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI Metropolitan Division which really is just Wayne County. Technically, that's not inaccurate information.

It's sort of misleading because most people think of Metro Detroit as the tri-county area. The information represented then would be of the Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI Metropolitan statistical area.

However, I would question at why they use the MSA for Indianapolis but not the MSA for Detroit. It seems like for all the cities on that list, they use the MSA for the smaller cities and the metro divisions for the larger cities in order to make the cities look closer in size which seems only to serve to make the smaller cities look more competitive than they actually are. So yea, that's kind of an iffy list.

[MackOnMack]

I was wondering if that was it after I posted. Indianapolis's MSA has a total of 9 counties, but I did look up Chicago's profile and it was just under 8 million.

[jackmichigan]

Originally Posted by RIVERSMVP14

nope im not. Have you seen the state we have the room and resources.

The most flawed argument from those espousing yet a higher human population is that we still have "room". Sheesh!!!

You're still pushing quantity over quality. The U.S. and the world was much better off when we had half the population we have today. Most people just don't think about it. It sure doesn't help when a lot of people take the world's resources for granted--and don't care about any other species besides homo sapiens.

If you like being overwhelmed with people, you should move to China. I hear they still have room there, too.

[canudigit]

So why do we need more people to move to Michigan? One of the qualities that Michigan has over the Sunbelt states is the fact that we are not overrun by transplants trying to move in and change our culture, politics, religion, etc. to fit the place that they came from.

Read a few of the threads on the Sunbelt forums started by people who want to move there simply because we have had a harder than normal winter in the northern U.S. this year and you will see what I mean. None of them care anything about acclimating to the culture where they plan to move to, they only care about it being warmer and cheaper. They post on forums of known Bible Belt "red" states and demand to be directed to areas that are "non-religious" and "strongly Democrat". They demand highly rated schools but low taxes. They demand a huge lot and a 3,000 square foot house for under $200,000 but they don't want "cookie cutter" construction or to live next door to "Bible Thumpers". They demand to be near the beach but also near the mountains and in an area with low humidity but no cold weather, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Who needs that? I happen to think that Michigan's wide open, uncluttered, spaces are one of its greatest amenities! God help us if there is ever a true, critical, life threatening, water shortage anywhere and people start flocking here just for the water like they flock to other places just for the warmer weather!

[RIVERSMVP14]

weli not saying crowd the state but a smal increase would increase roads budgets.

[Bhaalspawn]

Just wait for the southwestern part of the country to revert back to desert.

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by jackmichigan

This is the most backwards way of thinking. It's hard to believe that some people still think that increasing population is a good thing. What we need to be concerned about is quality of life--not increasing the number of people. Even from a purely economic perspective, you don't increase per capita income by increasing the number of people!

There are so many reasons why we should be against getting more people to move to Michigan and to the U.S.

I agree completely. Sadly, very few people understand the concept of Malthusian biology and the relationship between population, strain on the environment, and the costs of resources.

The United States is already the world's third most populous nation, right behind those high quality of life middle class bastions of India and China and after Pakistan, which is great company to be in.

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

I don't think Michigan (or the US) is at risk for overpopulation if people actually built cities intelligently (seriously, mass transit and density is not a bad thing to invest in), but aside from that, the state really should be a focus on improving QOL and creating jobs which is usually what attracts people to move anywhere.

When judging population, you can't just consider whether or not we have the ability to cram people into multistory housing and dense cities. You also need to consider the environmental and resource-use "footprint" that each person has. The amount of space and land that each person needs to maintain a decent standard of living is much larger than the size of their house or apartment.