And if you feel the opposite is true; will you be comfortable living with 40% lesser resources than you already have in the distant future ? What’s your general notion if your zipcode/town had more people ?

45 comments

  1. I think its just about right. You can still live in whatever environment you desire…though you might need to put some work in to get there.

  3. In the country as a whole? No.

    My state? Absolutely. I am actually reminded how many more people live where I do, despite me living in even more of a rural area now (in FL) than I did when I lived in MN – when I go back and visit relatives in MN and I need to stop at walmart or target for something. Half the people at any given store there, and it feels a bit odd when there’s almost none there close to closing time.

    My current zip code is already adding more people daily and it shows. Makes things a bit more annoying but not much I can do about it.

  5. Nope.

    >will you be comfortable living with 40% lesser resources than you already have in the distant future ?

    Why would there be 40% less resources?

    >What’s your general notion if your zipcode/town had more people

    Most Midwest and Northeast cities were built to house far more people than they currently do. It really shouldn’t be much of a problem. We’re also particularly well situated to deal with climate change.

  6. No. There’s an absolutely absurd amount of land and resources. We could quadruple the population for all I care.

  10. On the east coast? Yes. I would prefer not to have to play bumper cars just to go to the beach on a weekend in the summer, or rub elbows with 200 people to go hiking in the mountains.

  11. Nobody has any more or less right to be here than me. Seems a little entitled to decide that “other” people shouldn’t exist or be here.

  12. I don’t think there’s too many people vs them being distributed poorly. A lot of regions, states, and cities even have stagnant to declining populations and could easily take on an increased population. St. Louis, where I currently live, had more than 850k residents in 1950. Today, we have about 300k and falling. If people want to move around the country due to overcrowding, I would love to see the city of St. Louis have a growing population again. A lot of the Midwest is like this. Even Chicago is still 900k shy of its peak 1950 population.

  13. Not really. You could feel that way standing in Manhattan, but there are huge swaths of unpopulated land all over the place. Purely from a resources and sustainability stand point, we have plenty, if not too many people.

  14. I live in a town of 20,000 people and the closest “city” is 3.5 hours drive away. I feel surrounded by way too many people right now. If I hit three stop lights in a row it becomes an agoraphobic crisis for me.

  15. No.

    > will you be comfortable living with 40% lesser resources than you already have in the distant future ?

    Do you know what a “non sequitur” is?

  16. Nope. There’s a whole lot of empty out there. There are certain states and cities that are overpopulated (New York, LA, Denver, Seattle) but places where you can go hours without seeing a town like Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Eastern CO, etc also exist.

  17. USA still has tons of space. The problem is everyone wants to live in 10% of it.

  18. Not really. Too many in my *town* because roads haven’t expanded to support the growth in homes, but we’ve got lots of empty space for people in general.

  19. Not really. America is huge. There may be a lot of people in a few dense cities, but overall, America is pretty empty in comparison. Go an hour away from most major cities, and see just how low populated the country is.

    >will you be comfortable living with 40% lesser resources than you already have in the distant future ?

    Why would I have less resources? And what resource exactly would go down?

  20. I live in the most populous state and the most populous county, and I can say, personally, no, I don’t feel that there are too many people.

  22. Less resources or less luxuries? Let’s define what you mean first.

  23. Less resources or less luxuries? Let’s define what you mean first.

  24. > will you be comfortable living with 40% lesser resources than you already have in the distant future ?

    What kind of weirdly specific metric is this and how did you derive it?

    > What’s your general notion if your zipcode/town had more people ?

    We’re at about 13 people per square mile. Most people live here because it’s not crowded and it’s a quiet lifestyle. There’s a lot of squabbling over any type of development that may bring more people in, be it tourism or residential. I kind of like having a nice quiet beach to go to all summer, but we could also use the economic improvement.

  25. Not too many. We could probably handle quite a few more. I wish my current city had more people.

  29. We’re a huge country but like others have said, everyone wants to live in the same small parts of it. I quit going to the beach over the 4th of July because of how miserably crowded they all are but then you got back to my hometown and we’re barely pushing 15,000 residents

  30. No, I have never felt like there are too many people here. We have plenty of space.

    > living with 40% lesser resources

    Where is this number coming from? What resources? How distant?

    > if your zipcode/town had more people

    That would be a good thing but can we please get some more public transit

  31. Yes, just because I prefer fewer people and more wilderness.

    We aren’t almost at capacity but I’d like it there were half as many of us.

  32. I generally like the population in the rough ballpark of where it is now. 25% higher or lower wouldn’t necessarily be an issue, but I have no desire to see us be vying for most populous country in the world or the like. I’d generally prefer to have immigration at a level that keeps our long-term population projections at a slow rate of change. (which I think it’s generally at).

    > will you be comfortable living with 40% lesser resources than you already have in the distant future

    This isn’t really how populations work.

    > What’s your general notion if your zipcode/town had more people ?

    Build more housing to match and that’s fine, don’t and that’s a problem. I prefer it if it’s medium/high density construction in town centers rather than tons of single-family housing wrecking the countryside and chopping up the forests.

  33. Bring in more people by the boatload. I love our immigrants and I can always use more neighbors. Who else am I going to borrow tools or a truck from or get to watch my kids for an hour or two.

  34. No, most of the US is empty. Granted, there are areas that are colder/hotter/drier than most prefer, and areas unsuitable for agriculture, but even if you consider only active farmland there’s a massive amount of almost almost completely uninhabited land.

    I think there’s a concerted effort by some people in power to drive down birth rates and lower the population, so they push the narrative that there are too many people. And the large percentage of the population living in cities, being surrounded by tons of people, believe it as being true for the world.

    I think de-urbanization (living in smaller, rural towns) is one of the best things we can do to live more in harmony with nature. It gets rid of a lot of urban problems. Unfortunately it’s a hard sell for people who moved to cities for higher-paying jobs. I think that satellite internet and the move towards remote work will help, but for mass manufacturing there will always be a need for cities. But if you can get out to quieter, cleaner, friendlier, and cheaper rural America then it’s not a bad idea.

  35. There are not too many people in the USA, and if there become more, it will not cause a loss of resources for me. China is proof of an example where the population can grow/stabilize at a high level, and the average person ends up with more.

    Resource availability will be more a question of economics and policy, and not a question of demographics. Demographics matter when the system is closed (like, for example, the Earth as a whole), but not when it is open (like a country), as long as policy does not artificially close it.

  39. >have you ever felt that there are too many people in your country

    No. I don’t think any of our issues can be narrowed down to being caused by there being too many people.

    >will you be comfortable living with 40% lesser resources than you already have in the distant future

    Hard to answer that. Every resource? This question seems way too broad to answer.

    >What’s your general notion if your zipcode/town had more people

    They are building developments around me all over the place so ask me in a year. I’m fine with it. I imagine traffic may get a little worse but I’m in the land of roundabouts so I don’t think it will get horrible.

  41. US ranks 63rd in the world in terms of least dense countries at around 90. The world density population is 155. And even less dense countries like Canada and Australia are less dense due to habitability.

  42. Every time I leave the house. I wish there was a couple million less people in the city.

    We are definitely getting overpopulated.

  43. I think there’s too many people in concentrated areas. I grew up in rural/suburban areas and was totally amazed at how much time people in the city are used to waiting for things and dealing with crowds. I guess if that’s what they like though, more power to them.

  45. No, I’m a big fan of the book One Billion Americans and strongly believe we should encourage immigration by removing visa caps and other restrictions to draw in top talent from all over the world.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like