Is the UK overpopulated ?
Discussion
Murph7355 said:
That has the potential for making the IMF (I think) charts on GDP growth look accurate 
I suspect it will peak....nature has a way of balancing things out eventually.
As does any long term prediction. Including the Malthusian idea that we're doomed to keep multiplying for ever, and the even more persistent myth that the trends which have brought us to where we currently are will continue indefinitely. I suspect it will peak....nature has a way of balancing things out eventually.
Condi said:
untakenname said:
London is overpopulated, it would be easy to reduce it by a million or so by reducing the numbers of subsidised who live in London but there doesn't yet seem to be the political will to do it.
You mean get rid of all the poor people who serve your coffee in the morning or clean your office block when you've gone home? A typical low wage worker will still need to find £1000 per month for a studio flat, £200 travel (price of a 1-4 travel card) £130 council tax, £200 for utilities which doesn't leave much left for anything else.
No. I’ve been in wales for the past couple of days from Merseyside to Cardiff at least 80% of the train journey you won’t see a house as far as you can see you could fit millions more people in. Would you want to? No probably not but as a whole no we aren’t overpopulated you only need to visit one of the big China cities to see what over population looks like it’s not pretty.
The problem for me is that we just do infrastructure very well. we have towns with single lane roads in and out everywhere, so traffic is generally horrendous. even with new developments it's bad. My wife works in a place called Whitely, they built a ton of office blocks and a shopping centre. Once you're off the motorway and passed the first roundabout, it's single lane roads. it can take her on a bad day 25 minutes, just to get out of her office car park and onto the single lane road. Why on earth they didn't do duel carriageway throughout the area is crazy, they had the space when they built it, it was an enteirly new development.
AshVX220 said:
The problem for me is that we just do infrastructure very well. we have towns with single lane roads in and out everywhere, so traffic is generally horrendous. even with new developments it's bad. My wife works in a place called Whitely, they built a ton of office blocks and a shopping centre. Once you're off the motorway and passed the first roundabout, it's single lane roads. it can take her on a bad day 25 minutes, just to get out of her office car park and onto the single lane road. Why on earth they didn't do duel carriageway throughout the area is crazy, they had the space when they built it, it was an enteirly new development.
Because cars are bad m'kay, and congestion will a) increase fuel usage and contribute to the Treasury's coffers, and b) encourage people to get the bus.Meanwhile in the real world it just spreads the predictable misery, stress, tension and agression you might expect when any species is crammed into a smaller space than it needs to thrive.
AshVX220 said:
The problem for me is that we just do infrastructure very well. we have towns with single lane roads in and out everywhere, so traffic is generally horrendous. even with new developments it's bad. My wife works in a place called Whitely, they built a ton of office blocks and a shopping centre. Once you're off the motorway and passed the first roundabout, it's single lane roads. it can take her on a bad day 25 minutes, just to get out of her office car park and onto the single lane road. Why on earth they didn't do duel carriageway throughout the area is crazy, they had the space when they built it, it was an enteirly new development.
Surely the problem is the obsession with using a vehicle carrying a 2m x 0.5m x 0.3m object (a human) in a footprint of perhaps 30m x 2m x 3m?AshVX220 said:
Why on earth they didn't do duel carriageway throughout the area is crazy, they had the space when they built it, it was an enteirly new development.
Because developer won't pay for it, and council don't want to approve it or pay for it, as they won't to promote public transport to and from instead. The fact that any (if there is any) public transport (unless train) will get equally clogged up on the same roads is neither here no there to the politicians.
Pan Pan Pan said:
if people want to see how populated the country is, announce a shortage of something from milk, to bread or petrol, and watch what happens, at the outlets for these items.
They say we are only a few square meals away from mob rule.
Very true I would say.They say we are only a few square meals away from mob rule.
The UK is badly set up for its own self sustainability - arguably due to the sheer number of people living on the Island. Relying heavily on importing food and even relying heavily on the weather being typically British over the course of the year in order to meet the demand for water.
Have a shortage of either food or water for a certain period of time and due to heavy demand for what left available I would say being as far away from people would probably be the best thing for your own safety.
JuanCarlosFandango said:
Caddyshack said:
The world is over populated. Fix that and you fix the environment too.
Phew, that was easy!
I can't claim all the credit but world population growth is falling rapidly and will quite possibly become negative this century. Population will peak and our grandchildren will be facing on a global scale what Europe and Japan are facing now. An aging population.
Economies do not work very well when the numbers fall so governments stimulate re-population like after the 1st n 2nd world wars.
Has anyone here actually tried to define "overpopulated"?
The UK would be nicer with less people in it.
The UK could clearly manage to support more people, but at a reduced average quality of life.
I believe both of the above, but only one of those could be said to mean that it's overpopulated.
The UK would be nicer with less people in it.
The UK could clearly manage to support more people, but at a reduced average quality of life.
I believe both of the above, but only one of those could be said to mean that it's overpopulated.
Caddyshack said:
Growth falling is still growth, just not by as much. It is like deflation versus dis-inflation. Until we go negative and the oldies die off it will take a long time to actually reduce the population to an extent that it saves the planet.
Economies do not work very well when the numbers fall so governments stimulate re-population like after the 1st n 2nd world wars.
Yes but the trend is downwards. As I said we will almost certainly see growth fall this century and quite possibly peak population this or early next century. Certainly it isn't a quick fix and we'll need to build more houses, roads etc in the mean time. The point is, as with inflation and deflation, planning for a spike which will pass is a different matter to attempting to deal with continuous exponential growth. Economies do not work very well when the numbers fall so governments stimulate re-population like after the 1st n 2nd world wars.
According to Wikipedia's list about half the countries in the world are now at or below the replacement rate Total Fertility Rate of 2.1. And it's not just highly developed places like Japan and Europe either. Countries as diverse as Columbia, Vietnam and Qatar are all below replacement birth rates. Even Afghanistan has halved from 8 to 4 live births per woman over her child bearing years. The world as a whole is only 2.4.
Countdown said:
Have all those who complain about population growth decided to do the decent thing by not procreating?
Or is that just for "others"?
Yes, took a concious choice to stop at 1...under pressure from wife - I was happy with nil.Or is that just for "others"?
If every couple had just one - save for the odd twins etc.. the job would be jobbed
JuanCarlosFandango said:
Yes but the trend is downwards. As I said we will almost certainly see growth fall this century and quite possibly peak population this or early next century. Certainly it isn't a quick fix and we'll need to build more houses, roads etc in the mean time. The point is, as with inflation and deflation, planning for a spike which will pass is a different matter to attempting to deal with continuous exponential growth.
According to Wikipedia's list about half the countries in the world are now at or below the replacement rate Total Fertility Rate of 2.1. And it's not just highly developed places like Japan and Europe either. Countries as diverse as Columbia, Vietnam and Qatar are all below replacement birth rates. Even Afghanistan has halved from 8 to 4 live births per woman over her child bearing years. The world as a whole is only 2.4.
but even 2.4 average is replacing and adding more each generation, it needs to be less than 2According to Wikipedia's list about half the countries in the world are now at or below the replacement rate Total Fertility Rate of 2.1. And it's not just highly developed places like Japan and Europe either. Countries as diverse as Columbia, Vietnam and Qatar are all below replacement birth rates. Even Afghanistan has halved from 8 to 4 live births per woman over her child bearing years. The world as a whole is only 2.4.
The trend for downwards GROWTH is still growth. We need loss.
Johnnytheboy said:
Has anyone here actually tried to define "overpopulated"?
The UK would be nicer with less people in it.
The UK could clearly manage to support more people, but at a reduced average quality of life.
I believe both of the above, but only one of those could be said to mean that it's overpopulated.
Certainly in London/SE, its just the way we are going about it that is wrong. Everyone knows it is wrong, but money is being made so it just continues.The UK would be nicer with less people in it.
The UK could clearly manage to support more people, but at a reduced average quality of life.
I believe both of the above, but only one of those could be said to mean that it's overpopulated.
Even the most densely populated areas of the UK could support more people with fairly minimal loss of quality of life, but it won't happen if we just let property developers build increasingly dense housing subsidised by the taxpayer and pretend that alone is a valid and complete response to population growth.
If the developments could only be built if there was enough supporting infrastructure as part of the plan, then we'd be getting somewhere, but there isn't any money in that.
Even managed properly, standard of living still goes down. Huge swathes of outer London that were comfortable suburban areas 30 or so years ago have now become high-rise flat areas. Not everyone objects to living in those blocks, but I think most would derive a better standard of living in a house unless living right in a city centre.
Caddyshack said:
but even 2.4 average is replacing and adding more each generation, it needs to be less than 2
The trend for downwards GROWTH is still growth. We need loss.
We will get to loss.The trend for downwards GROWTH is still growth. We need loss.
We might even start to see population loss before TFR drops below 2 if births are outweighed by deaths of baby boomers.
Caddyshack said:
but even 2.4 average is replacing and adding more each generation, it needs to be less than 2
The trend for downwards GROWTH is still growth. We need loss.
We do, but most governments still work on the outdated economic notion that we need to have an ever increasing number of young people to support an ever increasing number of old people in retirement.The trend for downwards GROWTH is still growth. We need loss.
That was sound logic 50 years ago, but doesn't work now when an increasing number of young people won't be economically productive enough to propel themselves through their working years without support, let alone providing a meaningful contribution to the state.
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