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About São Paulo, it went through several periods. Firstly it was fed by immigration (from the late 19th century to WWII), then from its close hinterland and from very distant parts of the country (Northeast Brazil) and since the 1990's, more people leave the metro area (retirees mostly) to the surroundings while youngsters move in. Moreover, São Paulo has a very strong natural growth (births minus deaths) as the decades of intense migration made its population young on child bearing age. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Guys, do you know where we can search for births and deaths on US MSAs? They are an excelent source to identify the level of migration the area is getting. If births are going up, that's a strong indication migrants are coming or the opposite. We can look the past decade (2000-2010) and build patterns on it. I made my own estimates for Brazilian metro areas using this method and they are incredibly accurate. |
Germany is interesting. A lot of the accelerated growth is from them suddenly deciding to be an immigrant nation after decades of refusing to be. There are also trends within that of rural areas emptying out as people continue to move to cities, as well as the still present trend of people leaving the poorer former East Germany and moving to wealthier portions of the country in the West. Though interestingly the fastest growing cities seem to now be in East Germany.
The US decline of growth is also interesting. Could anyone speak as to why it's occurring? I take it our favorite Republican president has a lot to do with it, cutting immigration levels even lower.. But why is this happening now, and not, say, under Bush in the 2000's? Canada's growth rate has also accelerated over the last 5 years or so.. and where it's happening has shifted. Ontario is a friggen growth machine. 1.8% annual growth in an area of 14,000,000 people.. Also, areas of the country that traditionally were more or less flat or even shrinking have started to see population growth again, like the Maritime provinces. Nova Scotia seems set to pass 1,000,000 people in the next few years after languishing at the 950,000 mark for a generation. |
^ Germany saw the writing on the wall with their demographic time bomb had they done nothing. One of my former professors (a futurist) held a conference over there a number years ago and presented a sobering picture of their population crash if current trends (at the time) had continued and I'm sure he was far from alone and apparently the right people were listening.
As for Canada, Toronto has had crazy Houston/ Dallas level growth and will probably surpass both cities anytime now. if not already. |
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What is so bad about slow growth or stagnation? It's unreasonable to expect perpetual growth, and the planet surely doesn't need more people. I'm personally very encouraged to see population slowing, and wish Africa would hurry up and join the rest of the world when it comes to this metric.
I get that we built our economies around growth, but that's entirely unsustainable. I've always found the Rust Belt intriguing for this reason. It's one of a few places in the developed world where growth has stopped, and shrinking at the regional level is even occurring in some metros (Pittsburgh, Cleveland). Yet these cities appear to be hitting their strides once more and developing into better versions of themselves. Perhaps this region can provide lessons for how to adapt when the growth machine comes crashing down. |
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However, thinking of today's society, population shrinking is very hard to deal with. I don't think Cleveland abnd Pittsburgh a better today with their 3.5 million and 2.5 million metro areas, instead of 7 million/5 million in case they had grown at the US average since the 1970 (or maybe more if they had a Sunbelt kind of growth). I'm pretty sure they will be much more vibrant and exciting urban centres than they are today. |
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Yet immigration is the only option available. |
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The Earth is a like a bank where you have maxed out your loans and withdrawals. We are living on borrowed time.
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From the environmental point of view, 1 billion people Earth would be better. But from mankind, definitely not. In any case, world's population won't grow for much longer. |
If we accept that the world's population cannot grow indefinitely (and nature would never allow this), what then, is the optimal population, that would achieve a much better balance between human welfare (which is still atrocious for half or more of the world's citizens) and the planet's ecology (going to hell right before our eyes)?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._lines.svg.png I am going to say: something like 2 billion people at most. With at least 2/3 of the planet more or less off limits to resource exploitation; reserved for flora and fauna. With most of the 2 billion living in dense megacities (not sprawlsburgeria). |
I remember an old college lecture, where our prof highlighted that the Earth can sustain 30 billion people.The problem is human management..That's 30 billion people spread out and not concentrated. 30 billion people spread out and on the same page would be fantastic really!..Think of the innovations and creations that would come out of such a large pool of humans. but sadly we would screw it up, like we have done and keep doing.
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30 billion in appalling misery, given that we live on a finite planet.
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Get rid of the economic system. That's the only way. There is food, and physical resources on this finite planet. But we really aren't using the planet to its full potential and we base our everyday lives and functions on this false fabrication called a bartering/economic system. And we limit our species potential by this inherent limitation called money/financing when the only real limit to our potential is the ability for people to work and the processing power of their brains. But we have to tag a piece of compensation to the equation and further have this culture of materialism and barter and self-individuality fueled by selfishness to limit humans.
The Earth can support many more people, but would be increasingly strained if everyone for example lived the life of say the average American family. Now, if we resume the current model, its fine and dandy for a certain % of the global population, but the rest, will suffer. Its up to the world to decide if it will accept this. Really, collectively, for the greater good of Earth and all its inhabitants... countries and this idea of country individuality will have to go away. There are no countries... there is just Earth, its resources, and its organisms. This idea of countries is also yet another limitation towards the species, and causes suffering when we factor in the total population. One can only wonder how far the species would become if we didn't set self restrictions on ourselves. We still very much operate like a group of apes on the macro scale. The tribal mentality. But that's why Earth also has checks and balances. Earth is very good at annihilating redundancies and punishing errors. Disturb the natural patterns of weather and temperature... sure... but Earth will wipe out a few million via the climate or via some drought or famine. Nature is not to be messed with. Pathogens, yet another check and balance. |
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