Cities at the tipping point - overpopulation destroying major U.S. cities.

March 6, 2007 | Joe Lynch

[kabar]

Immigration by the numbers

All of this footprint stuff aside, we do have a public policy issue that needs to be discussed, i.e., the impact of legal and illegal immigration on the future population of the US. We are adding in addition to normal births, 1 million legal immigrants and 500,000 to 1 million illegal aliens each year to our population. During the 1990's our population increased by 32 million people. Since the last census in 2000, we have added 20 million people. They all need to be supported by infrastucture and resources, including energy. Do we want to be a nation of 400 to 500 million by 2050?

Because of current immigration policies adopted in 1965, the chain migration impact of the comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by the senate in 2006, we will add an additional 66 million legal immigrants over the next 20 years.

We are like the proverbial frog that is slowly being boiled to death and doesn't realize it until it is too late. This is not Paul Erlich stuff [The Population Bomb], but rather, hard data based on Bureau of the Census figures.

[Dante3]

Of course we have an overpopulation problem. Look at the traffic jams, the scenic areas and gorgeous one of a kind homes are destroyed for parking lots, our historic battlefields turned into tacky housing developments. Just looking at the what has been happening with the Civil War battlefields is shocking.

Anyone who thinks overpopulation is not a problem should stop sticking his head in the sand take a look around the country and compare to what it used to be.

Tom Wolfe has an excellent chapter on this topic - "Sliding down the behavioral sink" and already in the 1960s or 70s people such as the Rienows pointed out the problems. I can no longer afford to buy homes in the kind of neighborhoods my parents lived even though relatively speaking they made a lot less money.

[kabar]

Immigration reform.

[brazzaville]

Good morning.

So we really should round up those 30 million illegals and send them back across the border, along with a few million open border advocates and fellow travelers, just for good measure.

Michael Frazier

[Vaduz]

Give your humble [and they did].

[kabar]

China is trying to reduce its population.

[ccmay]

I visited Atlanta and Phoenix in the early 70s as a young man. I thought they were two of the most wonderful places in the US. Now IMHO they are the Chicagos of the SE and SW.

That's because half of Chicago has moved out here. No joke, the Cubs have more fans here than the Diamondbacks.

-ccm

[Vigilanteman]

The average American's "ecological footprint" (the demands an individual endowed with average amounts of resources, i.e., land, water, food, fiber, waste assimilation and disposal, etc. puts on the environment) is about 12 acres.

By this analysis, Japan should be a third world hell-hole and it is acutally a very pleasant place to live or visit.

Singapore would be even worse and it is actually even more pleasant than Japan.

[voltaires_zit]

When I moved to California back in the late 70s, the population was around 20,000,000.

By 2000, it was 35,000,000. In 2020, it is predicted to be slightly over 40,000,000.

Projections for 2100, while necessarily fuzzy, go as high as 80-90,000,000.

Where they'll go, and where they'll get their water and other needfuls, is not a trivial problem.

[Disambiguator]

Here's a fun website that deals with the population issue.

[willgolfforfood]

I'm guessing he didn't make straight A's in math, either.

[ccmay]

Malthusian garbage recycled by Paul Ehrlich's doom-mongering acolytes. The same people who warn us we'd destroy the planet with our advanced technological civilization - the same one that has eliminated famine, disease and made life easier, pleasant and far more happy than it used to be in olden times. That's what the Left is upset about and it fears there will be more pie for people to share. The liberal notion about shrinking resources is just dead plain wrong!

These professional Cassandras just can't be happy without scolding the rest of us for our sins. They have a great deal in common with fundamentalist religious wackos. It's all about the moral preening and patting oneself on the back.

It's pretty preposterous to think that anyone would take seriously even one word out of the mouth of the likes of Paul Erlich. I cannot think of another public figure whose predictions have been so uniformly and spectacularly wrong.

-ccm

[kabar]

See my post #19. Do you dispute the past census figures or the fact that we have added 20 million people since the 2000 census?

Right now our population is 301,339,904. We have one international migrant (net) every 27 seconds and a Net gain of one person every 12 seconds.

I am not against population increases, but the question is how much in what timeframe? Since 1990 we have added almost 53 million people.

[stbdside]

or West Texas, between El Paso and Fort Stockton.

[nascarnation]

I'm an Indians fan originally from Cleveland.

I saw the Dolans are extorting many millions from the AZ Tourism Board to move spring training from Florida to Arizona in 2009. It will be another good excuse for me to go out to Phoenix and help clog up the freeways in March, LOL.

[kabar]

By this analysis, Japan should be a third world hell-hole and it is acutally a very pleasant place to live or visit.

I have visited Japan many times. I would not want to live in such a densely populated place. The population of Japan is declining.

[showme_the_Glory]

The cities are already there. The last time I looked, it was the burbs that are growing so fast.

[nh1]

Where did they get this number?

That's easy, take the land area of the US 2,263,911,173 acres. Divide by how many people you think it should support to back up your agenda, say 200 million. That gives you 11.319 acres/person. Then just round it off to 12.

[reformed_democrat]

About 2 acres (including dogs).

[This Just In]

Or parts of Arizona, New Mexico, west of Spokane. All one has to do is look at a map of the U.S.A. and the "overpopulated" areas. Says it all.

Grant it, some of the isolated areas may not be able to sustain life for a large population, but the article is over-exaggerated to the point of absurdity.