About 20 or 30 years ago, the U.S. population was about 200 million. There was a Burger King comercial on at that time with a jingle that went “200 million people, no two are quite the same…”
(a bad choice to cite data I know, but that is all I could think of for now). Now, from what I hear, the U.S. population is about 300 million. If those numbers are even remotely accurate, that would be 50% increase in just a couple decades, or the U.S. population increasing about the size of an average-sized town every year. (BTW, for those of you who prefer a cite, this is best I can do for now. Remember, these numbers are in the thousands, and only go back to 1980.)
Well, you never hear anyone talking about overpopulation in the U.S., people assuming that is a Third World problem. But what about it? Could the U.S.A. have a problem with overpopulation some day down the road? (If anyone could find a better cite than the one I provided, that would be appreciated).
Try here - US Census Bureau has estimates for US population up to 2100.
Will the US have an overpopulation problem? Well, it depends - if our population grows at a rate that contributes to the overall decline in the quality of life for most Americans than one could make the claim that we are experiencing an overpopulation problem.
One could also make the claim that even if the US continues to grow at a higher than normal (i.e current) rate of growth, then it will be contributing to the overall decline in the quality of life for the rest of the world (or if not a decline then no significant improvement). While the US population only constitutes a fraction of the total world population (now around 6-7%), we consume a large chunk of the world’s resources (particularly enrgey resources - around 25%).
Well, the bay area damn near is overpopulated, but the US as a whole, no. Just take a plane, train, or automobile ride across the US, and there is a LOT of empty space out there.
I do wonder if the east coast (and a few hundred miles inland) is overpopulated though. An hour’s drive out of SF or LA, and you’re in relative wilderness for DAYS. Once you get within a day range of the atlantic ocean, though, it seems you’re never out of civilization.
These are thoroughly non-scientific observations based on my plane trips, 1 train trip, and 2 driving trips from the west to east coast.
Well, I can drive a few hours out and hit West Virginia. Not exactly chock full of people.
But yes, as long as the US population is increasing then it is heading towards overpopulation. It’s not something we’re going to have to really worry about for a long, long time though.
I don’t really think you can say “the US is overpopulated” as a whole, but that condition is certainly beginning to happen in the big cities. Not like we’re on the verge of overpopulation, but I’ve noticed that we’re beginning to accept/adopt the more cramped housing (townhomes, etc) and infill development reminiscent of parts of Europe. Definitely a notch in that direction…
Not really. Most of the State of New York is pretty empty; dirivng through it, you see more forest and farm than anything else. Pennsylvania’s mostly forest, too. And they’re two of the more heavily populated Eastern states.
All I can tell you is what I remember since I lived thru it. There used to be a lot of talk about it in the United States, you couldnt go a day without hearing on the news about the need for “zero population growth”, etc. Everyone back then was concerned about having too many people and overcrowding in the United States. The movie Soylent Green showed how bad things could get in the United States if we did not do something.
The reason you dont hear much about it anymore, is because we already did something about it. The problem we had was that we were having too many babies. That changed.
American born women have had negative population growth since 1970.
So what is there to talk about anymore? we already did it!
American women way back in the 1960’s learned of the problem, and solved it! WE did it!
All the increase in popultion since 1970, the change in population from 200 million to 300 million, is due totally from immigration.
It is uncool now to talk about overpopulation in the United States because everyone knows that it is a code word for cutting back on massive immigration. Most americans want massive immigration because they want more customers in their stores, they want more students in their schools, they want more voters, they want more cars on the highways, they want more people paying into the social security system, etc.
Yes, we are now around 300 million, depending on how many illegal aliens you count.
With no changes in our immigration laws, we should be at 400 people in this country by 2050, and around a billion at the end of this century.
Traffic, pollution, loss of fields, farms, and forests are inevitable.
By the end of the century, 800 million of the billion people living here, will be from foreign countries or the children of people born in foreign countries since 1970. All elections in this country by the end of the century will be decided by these 800 million and their children who are currently foreigners. What ever values, cultures, these 800 million have will be the way our country will be.
In the old days, immigrants coming into this country assimilated into our culture, so even big numbers in immigration did not change our country. That is changing. We now have people coming into our country that dont want to change the way they live, or their attitudes about women, or whatever.
Be prepared for some big changes in lifesyles in the UnIted States.
This is a mathematically implausible assertion. Let’s assume that it were true that every American family did stop reproducing after the second child beginning in 1970. This does not mean that population growth comes to a screeching halt. The reason for this, phrased simplistically, is that most people don’t wait for their parents to die before having kids. All the millions of people who had not yet had children previous to 1970 still get to contribute to the population. Meanwhile, people are living longer. So the population greys, but does not plateau for at least another 20 or 30 years.
Many European countries are experiencing an oncoming crisis due to the low birth rate and the aging of the population. Pretty soon, places like Italy and Germany will have two retired people for every four working age people.
I think it is always difficult to forecast population trends too far into the future. The United States went from 5 million in 1800 to 39 million in 1870 to 76 million in 1900. By WWII we hit a hundred million…then there was a long period of slower growth until the ‘baby boom’. If we had similar demographic surveys in the year 1900, they would have projected a population of 400-500 million people today. They did not see two world wars, a cold war, a great depression, and other changes.
Already, I think Septemer 11th’s aftermath and the slower economy has had some effect on immigration after the rather open period we had in the 1990’s.
Also I think the idea that past immigrants from Europe became “all American” eagerly and gained instant acceptance is a bit of selective memory. All from the 1830’s to the 1920’s there were constant calls for a halt to the dangerous and subversive immigration from Ireland and Eastern and Southern Europe. These people were derided from changing this country from a nearly all Protestant Nation to one with a large Catholic and Jewish population. They weren’t real “anglo-saxons” and some were of dubious “whiteness” as far as many Americans were concerned. They brought disease, criminality, socialism, and completely unAmerican vegetables like zucchini too our shores.
I do think that it is healthy from time to time to cut down on immigration and focus on assimilation for cultural reasons, but I don’t buy the ‘immigrants overpopulating America’ argument.
I disagree, at least from the 1830’s to 1900, we had a lot of empty land to fill up, and to be homesteaded. The west was empty, and we needed people to settle and build farms, adn ranches, etc. We passed the homestead act to recruit even more people to come here and fill up our land. Railroad companies went to europe to recruit more and more immigrants to come to this country. We needed people to fill up our land, and we needed workers to fill the millions of unfilled job oppenings in our growing industries.
That was then, and this is now.
Today, we dont have any empty land.
We also dont have millions of job openings going unfilled.
Frankly, I dont see why we need more people here. I dont have any fears of america being underpopulated, of too few traffic jams, or of too many jobs that cant be filled, if immigration stops.
There was a time and place for immigration, and I just dont see any need to add hundreds of millions of people to our population.
Just wanted to emphasize that space is not the main problem…it’s the distribution of resources…and I suppose by mass balance, the disposal of wastes (pollution).
AFAIK, the “carrying capacity” cannot be accurately determined (at least not until we hit that wall).
Some areas are already overpopulated* (generally the cities/coastal areas) and other areas still have a lot of available capacity (Alaska anyone?).
As evidenced by the need to import more resources than are available locally (like water for NYC or Vegas) and to export wastes (e.g., shipping trash to distant landfills). See also: Housing Shortages, Unemployment, Poverty, Disease, Crime Rates, etc.
