
The Case for Adding 672 Million More Americans - pseudolus
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/one-billion-americans-by-matthew-yglesias-book-excerpt.html
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rgbrenner
This is something I always thought as a kid. Just look at a map... why arent
there like a billion people in the US? This makes sense to a child because
it's so simple. But reality is more complicated.

2/3rds of the US lives east of the Mississippi river. So if we had that level
of density across the US, we would have 650m people. So east of the
Mississippi is pretty close to being populated at that level.

The central plains is rapidly draining the water table. So it's unlikely we'll
be able to continue farming it at the rate we have been (unless technology
improves to reduce water usage), much less increase output. To illustate this,
I love this image in [0] figure 2 on the first page. Water in an aquifer is
stored in small cavities in the rock/soil/etc, and when you drain it enough,
the ground literally collapses.. meaning you can never refill it. Our farmers
now have to drill deeper than every before, and some farmers are just put out
of business entirely... and that's today.

And the west is arguably already overpopulated. We literally drain the
Colorado river. We already need more desalination plants as it is.

If we put a billion people in the US, it would look very much like China.
China has a similar geography problem. So when you imagine the US with a
billion people, just imagine them all packed in on the east coast with some of
the same problems as China (food supply, pollution, etc).

0\.
[https://water.usgs.gov/ogw/pubs/fs00165/SubsidenceFS.v7.PDF](https://water.usgs.gov/ogw/pubs/fs00165/SubsidenceFS.v7.PDF)

~~~
kiba
This is because water usage is not priced, and that we wasted water in the
most inefficient manner.

Land is cheap, sun is free, and water is effectively free. We could switch to
aquaponic, which is water and land efficient, but that's expensive.

~~~
rgbrenner
That's very expensive... and consider we live in a globalized economy, that
would just result in more food imports. Again, China has a similar problem,
and they import food... because the economics of that solution just don't work
unless the rest of the world agrees (and they won't).

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in3d
"21.1 percent of American children are living in poverty, compared with 11.3
percent of German children and just 9.3 percent of Swedish children, even
though the U.S. is richer on average than either Germany or Sweden."

Dishonest. First, the poverty rate for children was 16.2% in 2018 (latest data
from
[https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26...](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-266.html)).
Second, the income calculated by Census for this measure doesn't include
things like food stamps or housing subsidies
([https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26...](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-266.html)).
If they are included, the poverty rate becomes a lot lower. Increasing
spending on social programs that address poverty can have no effect on the
poverty rate.

~~~
kevingadd
I guess it's essentially the divide between "are they living in poverty" (is
their family very poor) and "are they living in misery" (no food, no heat,
etc). Programs can address the latter without fixing the former, but that
doesn't necessarily mean the programs are a failure - gotta measure the right
things and measure them properly.

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freyr
Except for my childhood birthday parties, I can't think of a time when I
thought, "God, I wish this was three times as crowded."

~~~
pas
The US is so sparsely inhabited (in almost every way) yet many citizens think
it's already full.

~~~
freyr
Sparsely inhabited compared to what? 100 years ago? Australia? China? Sweden?
Rwanda?

You say that as if it's a bad thing, but perhaps it's the goal? Some of the
least densely populated countries are the happiest and healthiest. Some of the
most densely populated countries are the poorest and unhappiest. Regardless,
we're at the point where we need to seriously consider the long-term
sustainability of the current global population level.

~~~
pas
> Some of the most densely populated countries are the poorest and unhappiest.

Sure, there's a golden mean between slums and unwalkable suburbs/exurbs.

Interestingly the urbanization percentage for the US is basically the same as
for Norway 82.5%. And interestingly Oslo about tenth of the size of LA has
comparable density:
[https://www.ssb.no/a/english/kortnavn/beftett_en/fig-2011-06...](https://www.ssb.no/a/english/kortnavn/beftett_en/fig-2011-06-17-01-en.gif)
(per km^2)
[https://i.redd.it/v84al8v4ymp11.png](https://i.redd.it/v84al8v4ymp11.png)
(per mi^2)

"About 14% Americans live in the nation's rural counties, 54% in its suburbs
and small metros and about 30% in its urban core counties" (data from 2016)

and in Europe "In 2018, 39.3% of the population lived in the cities, 31.6%
lived in towns and suburbs, and 29.1% lived in rural areas"

> Regardless, we're at the point where we need to seriously consider the long-
> term sustainability of the current global population level.

Well, this sounds like the good old Malthus argument, but we're nowhere near
carrying capacity of Earth.

... the problem is that the cost and environmental impact of certain
lifestyles are unsustainable.

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rmrfstar
I read somewhere that "butter side down" people write pieces easy for the
"butter side up" crowd to dunk on.

The dunks amplify the message well beyond the attention the original author
could muster.

~~~
jml7c5
I don't understand; are you saying the author doesn't actually want this, but
just wants to be a strawman?

~~~
jessaustin
Yglesias is a divisive enough figure who has been around for a long enough
time that he could pull a thesis out of a hat, noodle around for 100 pages
without ever building a recognizable argument, hire a couple of interns to pad
it out to 300 pages (when extensive back matter is included), arrange for a
well-orchestrated pay-for-review campaign to get some small fraction of the
public excited or perturbed, and then _just about_ pay for the advance (after
extensive publishing-company accounting shenanigans). So, that's what he does.
He doesn't actually give a hoot whether there are more or fewer Americans.

~~~
damnyou
A simpler explanation: the guy sincerely believes there should be more
Americans and is also decent at self-promotion (which is how he got where he
is).

~~~
rmrfstar
Not so sure about that, given his claim that "it’s worth emphasizing that
while 1 billion Americans may be impossible and absurd, there’s actually
nothing hard about it."

~~~
damnyou
Impossible and absurd, politically perhaps?

Everything I know about him leads me to believe he truly, sincerely believes
in the thesis of the book.

~~~
jessaustin
The thesis is manifestly insane. Do you know him to be insane? This
"explanation" is always "simple", but rarely accurate.

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lisper
Argh! Yes, there's a lot of empty space in the U.S. but land area is not the
limiting factor on population growth, and never has been. At the moment the
limiting factor appears to be planet-wide carbon emissions, and we are already
_way_ past the point of sustainability with respect to that. We need to be
talking about _reducing_ the world's population, otherwise there will just be
that many more people who have to suffer through the climate apocalypse that
is surely coming.

~~~
kiba
It is rich people that pollute the most, so our objective should be focused on
reducing negative externalities, especially reducing excessive
consumption(which correspond to pollution) that don't contribute to our
quality of life.

Remember, the sun gives more energy in an hour to the earth than our entire
civilization consume in an entire year. It's clearly not a resource problem.

~~~
edoceo
What if we eat the rich?

~~~
kiba
By rich, I meant the American people _are_ the rich.

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clairity
once you get past the xenophobia, most americans will realize that the only
way to continue the properity and global power we've enjoyed over the past
century is to import more people because we're not making enough here. it's
literally the playbook for sustainably growing an otherwise mature and
stagnating economy.

moreover, incumbent americans are just too risk-averse to innovate or invest
in real innovation vs paper gains. the wealthy and powerful among us have been
in hardcore harvest mode for 40 years and we're gradually, collectively losing
our knowledge and ability to plow and sow. instead, we're all on social media
trying to out-shizzle each other.

~~~
throwaway316943
Sounds more like the only way to keep a ponzie scheme running. If you want
real growth you need to invent new things and develop new resources. Only rent
seekers want more people / suckers.

~~~
pas
Bigger markets have the possibility to be more efficient. This is a very
important and overlooked factor.

Simply lifting many US folks out of poverty would help tremendously.

------
spaetzleesser
Interesting article but I am not sure if this is satire or not. There are many
projects the country could or should take on but making an effort to massively
increase population seems just lunacy to me. There are already problems with
pollution and water resources. Why make these things much worse?

~~~
nikkwong
I don't feel like the article discusses the economic reasons to increase our
population count deeply enough. We're a consumer economy, so when population
count slows or stagnates near mid this century, markets will suffer. Japan's
GDP has slowed to around ~1% per annum, in large part due to their stalling
population count. That has hurt people in every walk of life, not only those
exposed to financial markets.

Canada is taking these projections seriously, and therefore has incredibly
generous immigration policies, aiming to grow their population by nearly 200%
by 2100 [0]. This video is definitely worth watching! They seem to be taking
cues that have been gleamed off of protectionist and introverted policies that
have inflicted harm on other states in the past. China under Mao, for example.
It will be interesting seeing what the effect their approach will have vs one
in diametric opposition such as modern-day GB.

Immigration does come with problems absolutely; but I'd be more for expanding
immigration domestically than by increasing the birth rate, while we still
haven't figured out larger problems like pollution and climate change.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1jat2-zI98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1jat2-zI98)

~~~
mdorazio
> That has hurt people in every walk of life, not only those exposed to
> financial markets.

Seconding sumedh's comment, what's your basis for this statement?

~~~
nikkwong
I'm sure there are multiple ways to look at the data and an argument can be
made for both sides; but generally speaking I feel like a rising tide lifts
most boats. Or to be said differently, rising GDP creates the greatest good
for the greatest number of people. (ex. Amazon in Seattle, not everyone shares
in the wealth city's new wealth explosion, but most would argue the net wealth
creation is positive).

Even better, Western European countries that are relatively speaking highly
productive and also socially supportive can boast better quality of life for
their residents no matter where they fall on the income ladder. That is in
opposition to countries with low productivity, or weak social safety nets. The
US may be the latter, but that is a different debate. A slowing GDP won't fix
that problem; though, I think it is likely that weak social systems impact
those at the bottom of the income distribution more than a relatively lower
GDP.

~~~
mdorazio
You're going to be very hard pressed to find any data to support your view.
GDP growth has basically nothing to do with quality of life. For that, on the
economic side, you would look at median real GDP per capita adjusted for PPP.
For example, [1]. Raw GDP growth _could_ boost that over time, or it could all
flow to a minority of people and leave the majority of the population worse
off, or it could go hand in hand with price inflation and corresponding drop
in PPP, or your population could be growing just as fast as your GDP, etc.

Consider also [2], which adjusts a common measure of general citizenry well-
being for inequality. Japan routinely is in the top 5 on this list while
countries with much higher GDP growth are not.

As a third point, keep in mind that HN and reddit favorite "life is best here
country" Norway rarely tops 2% GDP growth, and a big chunk of that is
attributable to oil exports. If your population is relatively stable and
sufficiently developed, you really don't need GDP growth to improve quality of
life, you just have to properly invest your GDP in the right places.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Quality_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Quality_Index)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequalit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-
adjusted_HDI)

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JackFr
He comes close to, but never really makes an argument as why this should be a
goal. Why is having the largest GDP any more important than having the tallest
skyscraper or the most Olympic medals? Ultimately, what is the _telos_ of a
nation?

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nine_zeros
I've been traveling in New England. The sights of aging population are
everywhere. Entire towns are run only by the old who may die in a few years.
Where are the young people? They are in cities or suburbs of course.

Rural America is decaying for sure.

However, the fix is not to indiscriminately add more humans.

We should make legal immigration streamlined and targeted. Have a target for
the year and remove the bureaucracy so people can move in quick allowing us to
reach said targets.

But yes, country statistics competition wise, we are about to lose to China
asap. Especially with the leadership we have at the top right now.

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russellbeattie
When I was born in 1972, the global population was roughly half of what it is
now. It was like living in a world after Thanatos snapped his fingers... I'm
not sure how they were able to survive.

In [another 50] years the population will double again, and everyone then will
look back at today and be amazed there were so few people. They'll make a
movie where there's "only" 7.8 billion people left and it'll be a blockbuster.

(Assuming there's still a functioning democracy then.)

* Edited. See below.

~~~
sumedh
> In 30 years the population will double again

How would it double if the population growth rate has been falling down for
decades?

~~~
russellbeattie
Actually, yeah, it looks to be about 60 years if things don't change... My
bad. I misread a chart on Wikipedia earlier, just used this instead:

[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900)

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jccalhoun
It is an interesting argument but I wonder if tripling the amount of people in
the USA would result in denser cities or more smaller cities and overall less
farm land. It certainly wouldn't be distributed equally.

The idea gives me a real feeling of Not In My Back Yard. If they want to make
denser residential areas in cities that is fine but I like my low real estate
prices and having a house instead of being in an apartment building.

~~~
kiba
Tokyo have lot of single family housing and remains affordable for middle
class.

You just don't get lawns or backyard, which is fine by me. Lawns are unwanted
busyworks.

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Rexxar
With the same logic we should add 1850 Million more Russians. The number will
keep them warn in the tundra.

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Protostome
That's a brilliant idea. I think the US should open its gates to people of all
races which could benefit its economy. (from computer scientists to
construction workers)

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Google234
No thanks.

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Razengan
> _When America faced down Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, we were the big
> dog._

I regret even clicking on this drivel.

~~~
JackFr
I assume he meant facing them down at different points in time. I’m pretty
sure Matt Yglesias knows that the Soviet Union was our ally against the Nazis.

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seebetter
Let's start by moving 1 million people each out of the major cities.

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drewcoo
This is a Matthew Yglesias book advertisement. It's an extremely partisan
excerpt by a Vox co-founder who likes the controversy.

~~~
jessaustin
I'm not sure if it even counts as partisan. It's so goofy that everyone
regardless of team affiliation will find something with which to disagree.
This is book marketing, troll-style.

