
The Case for Adding 672M More Americans - jseliger
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/one-billion-americans-by-matthew-yglesias-book-excerpt.html
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mc32
Imagine all the droughts, floods, hurricanes, traffic, refuse dumps, water
shortages, earthquake preparation, suburbanization, encroachment on nature,
overuse, etc that we already have but multiply by three.

Why not Russia or Australia or Brazil or Argentina?

If people like an American lifestyle —which many people denounce as arrogant,
entitled, selfish and wasteful, etc., they can build their own versions. We
give you the blueprint. You know it can be done. Go do it.

No offense to China, but I don’t want that density. I’ve lived in that density
a few years and if existentialism was something here, 3x the pop will augment
that.

Also, China's pop is old. Soon they will be in the same boat as Japan
confronting an older pop, so raw pop should not be a concern. Mao isn't there
any more to command Chinese women to produce millions of babies (as he told
Khrushchev he would command if Russia bombed them).

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sushshshsh
This can only be done with remote work. Long Island NY still has traffic
problems even with everyone working from home and plenty of highways and multi
billion dollar train and bus systems.

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rbecker
Just build 2x the entire current US infrastructure (schools, roads, farms,
power plants, hospitals, water systems, housing,...) to maintain current
living standards - easy! Or in other words, for each US city, build 2 more
identical cities. The 672M new Americans would have already done so in their
home countries, but they lacked the _unique opportunities_ of America to do
so. And once they are in a country where present-day Americans make up 33% of
the population, that will change.

Oh and don't forget about lowering your carbon footprint and safeguarding the
environment. The best way to do that:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-
to-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-
climate-change-have-fewer-children)

Article also does a great job of making the current, highest-it's-been-in-a-
century rate of immigration seem low:
[https://www.statista.com/chart/11534/us-immigrant-
population...](https://www.statista.com/chart/11534/us-immigrant-population-
hit-record-437-million-in-2016/)

