Australia, Canada, UK in 2100

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by muppet

Yep, brain drain.

Even though world fertility levels will fall, do bear in mind for all those current kids pairing up when they're adults, will still add on one or two kids on average, and their kids in turn will have one, all in the same lifetime.

This is why places such as India which has seen fertlility plummet to below replacement levels will still add on 400 million to its population through the 'decline'. Africa has not peaked (it's doing so now), even though its birthrates have also plummeted they're well above replacement still at above 3-4 kids per couple. Every continent in the world will be static or declining this century except for Africa. Note how North America and Europe will stay static despite low birthrates, thanks to immigration:



^Africa will likely become the centre for world population in the next century, Nigeria alone may even be approaching China's population (highest estimates at 930 million) but with a far higher amount of working age adults. The world's largest singular cities will also be in Africa:

I don't believe that graph will ever happen. Kabul at 50 million?! HAHAHAHA Has anyone here ever been to Kabul?

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by The North One

I'm well aware what the size of the UK is, I'm talking about perspectives and feelings.

I can actually see what you mean, but it does betray a lack of a sense for how the UK feels when you are in it. Places like Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool are legit large cities, but the biggest difference is how many large towns and small cities of 100-250,000 the UK has. It is just dotted with significant towns comparable to Victoria or Halifax. Also? Edinburgh-Quebec City is kind of the New York-Toronto of that sort of thing...

[kool maudit]

The UK's settlement pattern is ultimately just really different from the North American "metro area" understanding. It's like the Netherlands writ large.

[iheartthed]

I used to think Australia was a much bigger country than it is.

[kool maudit]

Well it's a continent with all of these crazy charismatic features and animals. I can see that.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Well it's a continent with all of these crazy charismatic features and animals. I can see that.

Yeah, I equated land mass more with population when I was younger. I also thought Canada was more populous than it is in reality.

I never thought about the relative size of the population of the U.K. to other places, but I was surprised to learn that it is so geographically small. But this is because Britain (and Europe) are always drawn disproportionately large on world maps.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

UofT is a very good school, but no, definitely not considered one of the world's best. It doesn't have the breadth of strengths of, say, University of Michigan, which is barely Top 25 in the U.S. Canada doesn't have the crap universities of the U.S., but it doesn't really have the other extreme either. More like a Germany, with a bunch of good schools, but no elites or garbage.

And of course it's incredibly diverse. Toronto is incredibly diverse and UofT is its flagship university.

Is McGill still the best university in Canada?

[MolsonExport]

https://www.timeshighereducation.com...asc/cols/stats

UofT ranks 18th worldwide, two spots below Columbia U, and 3 spots ahead of U Michigan.

McGill (one of my alma maters) has fallen to third in Canada (after UofT and UBC), coming in at 42. these three along with University of Alberta, McMaster U, and U of Montreal (was a prof there for a spell), round out Canada's contributions to the top 100 list.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I can actually see what you mean, but it does betray a lack of a sense for how the UK feels when you are in it. Places like Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool are legit large cities, but the biggest difference is how many large towns and small cities of 100-250,000 the UK has. It is just dotted with significant towns comparable to Victoria or Halifax. Also? Edinburgh-Quebec City is kind of the New York-Toronto of that sort of thing...

I agree the metro area concept doesn't make a lot of sense when you're talking about a large, decentralized web of towns and cities that covers an area much larger than anybody can commute around in. I don't know how you would decide what is or isn't a metro in the Netherlands.

I think this way of describing the difference between Canada and the UK is pretty misleading though. Canada has lots of small towns and cities too. For example Chatham-Kent has just over 100,000 people, and it's a relatively obscure area that comes in at #53 population-wise in Canada.

We should not be too focused on urban characteristics like busy walkable areas and medium density historic buildings. That is the sort of lens you need to apply to give the impression the UK is dotted with small North American metro area equivalents. Those characteristics are nice, and areas where North American cities are comparatively lacking, but they don't capture the full economic picture. I don't think we should consider Phoenix a non-entity because we don't like how it looks. When we take a more holistic view, I don't think the gap between Canada and the UK is very large. Canada is a lot more spread out but the total amount of development is not much smaller.

[bossabreezes]

Those top 15 cities in the graph seem highly unlikely. These studies don't take the eventual famine, war, civil unrest, virus or natural disaster that's likely to strike these future megacities and their countries.

Almost all of the listed cities are in highly hostile and volatile geopolitical locations, which exposes them to highly unpredictable variables which will almost certainly prevent them from blowing up in population like this.

Niamey with 50 million people? Ha, let me know where they're going to get enough water for that many people. Also, what a depressing thought of places like this- 50 million people living in subhuman conditions.

[MolsonExport]

Due to history, population, military and economic clout, the UK stands way above Canada and Australia.

In 2100? I suspect Canada and Australia will outrank the UK in all but the first aspect (which will probably never be bested by CANAUS).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

https://www.timeshighereducation.com...asc/cols/stats

UofT ranks 18th worldwide, two spots below Columbia U, and 3 spots ahead of U Michigan.

McGill (one of my alma maters) has fallen to third in Canada (after UofT and UBC), coming in at 42. these three along with University of Alberta, McMaster U, and U of Montreal (was a prof there for a spell), round out Canada's contributions to the top 100 list.

I agree Toronto is now the best Canadian university, but that ranking link appears to be silly clickbait, and not really related to the discussion.

It's all subjective, but if you has 100 academics whether Toronto or Michigan were more prestigious overall, I think it would be near-consensus, and, again, Michigan isn't even among the most prestigious universities in the U.S. Places like Princeton, Stanford, Cambridge have global prestige. Essentially the Ivies (and probably only HYPC and maybe Wharton), Oxbridge, Stanford and MIT.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The UK's settlement pattern is ultimately just really different from the North American "metro area" understanding. It's like the Netherlands writ large.

Or perhaps England. The remainder of the UK is empty-ish and population tends to concentrate in something approximating NA metros.

That whole crescent from the Rhein/Mosel/Neckar, up through Benelux and England has, for centuries, been densely populated with towns every few km and no real wilderness.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think the bolded depends on the list. U of M performs better on international rankings than it does on domestic lists, and that's probably because domestic lists tend to be stacked with liberal arts schools, as opposed to those with strong STEM programs.

The small liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore and the like) aren't categorized with the larger research institutions.

Looking at the US News rankings, I don't see any university ranked ahead of Michigan that could be described as not having a strong STEM emphasis. It's the Ivies, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, Berkeley, Rice, Northwestern, basically.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

A lot of people have reminded you how sick they are of your distorted characterizations of Canada and Australia. There must be a reason for your dogged refusal to refrain from constantly bleating the same false narrative.

Your hatred for anything Canadian, as demonstrated by literally hundreds of posts, is quite pathological.

Perhaps you should point out a flaw in my reasoning instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks

[dc_denizen]

wow, in the other thread I complained about LA having too many golf courses and few parks. And yet somehow, the thread wasn't suddenly filled with angry Angelenos complaining about my horrifically biased attitude towards their city.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Greavsie

Eh?Canada may one day overtake the UK but presently Canada could add Australia,New Zealand and the republic of Ireland to its population and would be about as many people as there are in the UK.Maybe you just don't know anything about the UK.

While you're not wrong... your numbers are a bit off. Canada + Australia + New Zealand + Ireland = 73.3 million; versus 67.9 million in the UK. Could do it without Ireland. Could do it without New Zealand too, once Scotland leaves!

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

While you're not wrong... your numbers are a bit off. Canada + Australia + New Zealand + Ireland = 73.3 million; versus 67.9 million in the UK. Could do it without Ireland. Could do it without New Zealand too, once Scotland leaves!

In the scheme of things does 38 million vs. 68 million amount to a big qualitative difference?

A lot of people compare Canada and the Netherlands as smaller countries (historically "middle powers") and it turns out the NL is around 17 million, so proportionately smaller with respect to Canada than Canada is with respect to the UK.

The Aus:Can ratio is also pretty close to Can:UK, but nobody makes a big deal about how Canada is so much more important or developed than Australia (because it's not, and on top of this few people are likely to worry about it or notice).

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Perhaps you should point out a flaw in my reasoning instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks

Here's the flaw in your "reasoning":

Your understanding of national economies is based on anecdotal observation of things that you deem to be important, but probably aren't in the grander scheme of things, or are based on exaggerated assumptions. In this case, your knowledge of the Korean economy is based on your observation of consumer-facing goods in product areas that you are aware of, like Hyundai cars and Samsung phones.

Not only do these multinationals employ only a fraction of the Korean workforce, but it's possible that much of the "sexy" work (R&D, product development, etc.) may not actually take place in Korea. Samsung has an innovation center in San Jose, and I'm pretty sure those people don't just do back office work for the US operations. Whatever spoils these companies bring back to Korea certainly don't trickle down to the average Korean (cf: the families in the movie "Parasite").

The Canadian and Australian economies may have just as many "technically-rigorous" export industries, but they are involved in making or managing things you'll never see as a consumer, or are involved in things like professional and financial services.

[Greavsie]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

While you're not wrong... your numbers are a bit off. Canada + Australia + New Zealand + Ireland = 73.3 million; versus 67.9 million in the UK. Could do it without Ireland. Could do it without New Zealand too, once Scotland leaves!

I would say those countries are about up to 70 million whereas the actual population of the UK is actually undercounted...we have a large diaspora living around the world who flit back and forth and a large transitory population who live here.The big challenge for the UK is the continuing renaissance of the second tier cities which has been happening for sometime.