As the United States edges closer to the 300 million mark, there will probably be lots of stories like this one exploring the benefits and drawbacks of having such a big population:
In the past 39 years, the United States has added 100 million people - the biggest population spurt in its history. At the same time, America has sustained greater economic growth than any civilization before it.
Is there a link?
While it's hard to prove that population growth spurs economic growth, experts say, the two often go hand in hand. That helps to explain why, by virtually any socioeconomic standard, most American workers are better off today than they were in 1967, the year the population reached 200 million.
While there are certainly advantages to being in a political unit with so much people -- economies of scale make so many things possible -- nobody actually lives in anything that big. Our everyday lives are on a much smaller scale, at the neighborhood level. Probably the best way to live, in fact, is to be near a large population center so as to get all the benefits, but not so close that we have to put up with all the negatives involved. That's why the automobile spurred suburban expansion. And it's why annexation is such an emotional issue. People who are in the to-be-annexed areas have made the most rational decision possible, and everybody knows it.
Comments
"While it's hard to prove that population growth spurs economic growth, experts say, the two often go hand in hand. That helps to explain why, by virtually any socioeconomic standard, most American workers are better off today than they were in 1967, the year the population reached 200 million."
This is nonsense, saying--essentially--"X may or may not equal Y, but A equals B." Huh?
When the population increases, the economy *must* expand or everyone, on average, will be worse off. (More people eating the same pie.) But, as the article notes before ignoring it, where's the causality? Might we be wealthier than we were 30 years a go because of technological innovation, and not because of increased population? Might we not be, on average, even wealthier if we weren't spreading the gains among an additional 100 million people? Maybe, maybe not--but you won't even begin to find the answer in that article.
It's a puff piece for a Brave New America. I mean, if the 300 million people mark is good for the economy, then the 600 million mark must be great, right? And if the 600 million mark is great for the American economy, then the 1.2 billion mark must be fabulous, yes?
Yes, let's do head down the overpopulated paths of India and China--our economy will boom! (Sorry about your luck, wide open spaces and wild animals. Human economic growth requires your extinction.)
All your open spaces are belong to us.