From StrangeMaps:
The US is one of the world’s biggest countries, with one of the world’s most numerous populations [1]. The 23rd Census of the United States, now under way, will provide us with updated information on the current size of America’s population, but until then, let’s assume – as this map does – that the country is inhabited by about 300 million people. With a total area of 3,794,101 sqare miles, that gives the US a population density of approximately 79 Americans per square mile.
[ . . .]
Now, what if the whole population of the US would live in such a cheek-by-jowlish manner? How much space would they need? Texas? Nope. California? Think again. Pennsylvania? Nu-uh. Florida? Nice try. New Hampshire. That’s how much, or rather: how little space would be needed. The state would be ruined, though (imagine a Brooklyn-like sprawl of that size), but the rest of the country would be green and pleasantly devoid of people! As the legend to these maps point out, a further advantage would be that all Americans would be neighbors. Somehow, that does not sound like a very good idea.
March 25th, 2010 | 1:04 pm
Whenever I mention this to somebody who supports population control they think I’m lying. Happens every time.
March 25th, 2010 | 1:11 pm
Well, this does demonstrate that anyone who thinks that the US is “overcrowded” is just plain ignorant.
I believe that a similar exercise for the entire planet shows that everyone could fit into North Dakota, showing that anyone who thinks the planet is overcrowded is similarly clueless.
March 25th, 2010 | 3:58 pm
Would this include all of the churches, factories, restaurants, banks, farms, ports, schools, malls, stadiums, gas stations, golf courses, baseball fields, mining operations, government buildings, electric companies, sewage waste facilities, military bases, raw materials storage sites, etc., etc. needed to support those 300 million people? (I’m assuming Brooklyn isn’t self-sustaining with respect to at least most of the above.) If not, how much more area would be needed, and how much more spread-out would those 300 million people have to be to accommodate the additional necessities? I suspect it would be a lot closer to Texas or California, if not larger.
March 25th, 2010 | 8:35 pm
The point, I think, is that people aren’t taking up nearly as much space as people (primarily on the left) would have us believe. Sure, Brooklyn doesn’t have farms, etc. But you get the point. Even if you need a state the size of Texas, that leaves an awful lot of land available. And let’s not forget, that leaves Alaska empty too! It’s a big, big world. Even 7 billion people doesn’t come close to filling it up.
March 26th, 2010 | 11:54 am
True, but I don’t think exaggerating in the other direction is all that helpful. When I fly across the country, I’m struck by how much land is taken up by farms, etc. Everywhere I look, I see traces of human activity. My point is that the question of whether there are too many people involves a lot more than how many people the country (world) can hold. Indeed, the real question, it seems to me, is how many of those other things the world can hold (and how much of the world’s resources are left for, and can be devoted to, those other things without causing serious damage to the ecosystem as a whole). After all, even though the world is big, it’s still finite. If we keep growing, sooner or later we will overpopulate it. By then, the damage will have been done, and our descendants will be left to suffer the consequences.
March 28th, 2010 | 7:06 pm
Read The Skeptical Environmentalist. Population will most probably peak at less than billion in 2200. In the meantime, as population grows, we are better fed, earning more, and leaving LESS of a footprint on the environment. That’s not to say that modernity and large populations don’t bring challenges, but the whole overpopulation scare is absurdly overblown and not supported by the facts. Not at all. This little issue about where we would all fit is nothing but interesting trivia compared to all the very serious, relevant, publicly-available facts that Lomborg presents in his book (and others like Julian Simon have presented elsewhere).
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