India's population expected to pass China's by 2030

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by DanS
S. Korea has a higher population density than N. Korea. But both S. Korea and Taiwan seem to do OK managing extreme population densities. Japan seems to do reasonably well managing a huge city (Tokyo-Yokohama).

I don't know why China or India wouldn't be able to organize things equally well or better.

Then why haven't they?

If markets are so perfect why haven't they been able to effectively solve this? If goverments have all the solutions, why have they failed to implement them?

The world isn't as perfect as you'd like to hope it'd be. That some countries have been able to overcome these dificulties does not mean all of them, and should the problems truly become critical where's the guarantee that the solutions will be able to be applied globally? Wishful thinking if you ask me.

Take the AIDS issue for example. The devloping world can afford to keep its HIV-positive population still active yet Africa is suffering tremendously under the epidemic. If the solution is out there, why isn't it implemented as effectively as the solutions you have posted in this thread?

[mindseye]

Originally posted by DanS

Actually, you're quite wrong about the US experience

My point was that the US could accomodate large numbers of additional people who could settle in vast new lands with huge amounts of natural resources readily available.

China's countryside, on the other hand, is already crowded and underemployed. Natural resources are already severely taxed. There is no room for large numbers of new residents, as there was in the US. And the cities are already more densely crowded than at any point in US history.

Ask yourself why all the people moved in from the countryside in the US, so that now we're a majority urban society. If workers in rural areas were so well employed and compensated, they would have stayed there.

I have no argument with you over why urbanization takes place. What I'm saying is that you are wildly unrealistic about the ability of cities in a contemporary developing nation like China to absorb the kind of numbers we are talking about, numbers which dwarf anything in the US experience. American cities never needed to absorb 700 million rural people, much less figure out how to handle their water, food, sewage, air, transportation, education and employment requirements, all long before these people can hope to contribute enough to society to offset these costs.

Your contention that additional people automatically benefit a society does not seem to take into account many factors such as living standards. Adding ten million slum dwellers to your city benefits it how? And who uses more water, a slum dweller or an office worker?

The inapposite part comes because the economic strength of the US is not in its frontiers, but rather in its cities. It doesn't matter much overall to the US economy what happens in Montana. It never has, even during the frontier era.

So what? If your population growth is outstripping the national water and air resources available, what does it matter where your economic strength is located?

The inefficient sucking up of so many natural resources is due to such insane rates of economic growth, not the number of people. If the Chinese government throttled the growth rate back to something more reasonable, Chinese companies could do a better job at picking out the most efficient resource sources.

This seems seriously divorced from reality. Slowing down growth will increase ground water? Huh? Desertification is happening here because in many areas there is NO more water available at ANY realistic cost. I'm sorry, but it is not simply a matter of more efficiently extracting it. And forgive me for saying so, but some of your other proposed solutions ("just build more subways") are ludicrous for a developing nation where many lack even basic education. Throttling back growth will further limit available funds for all those new subway lines.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by DanS

If you're growing 7% or 9% real per annum, people are becoming much better off very quickly no matter the rate of population increase.

That all depends on how income distribution is affecting the allocation of those 7-9%. Geography also comes into play. It is quite conceivable that the great mass of poor or certain regions might not actually be benefiting from positive real growth rates, and could actually be getting worse off (happens often in Mexico). I'm not saying that is the current case with China or India but this affirmation reeks of ceteris paribus...

[DanS]

Then why haven't they?

They've only been following positive economic policies for a short time. Cut them some slack. They are solving some of their problems at a reasonably good clip.

The world isn't as perfect as you'd like to hope it'd be.

I don't know where you saw me state or imply that the world is perfect. It doesn't need to be. It seems like you are projecting your prejudices on my views.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by DanS
S. Korea has a higher population density than N. Korea. But both S. Korea and Taiwan seem to do OK managing extreme population densities. Japan seems to do reasonably well managing a huge city (Tokyo-Yokohama).

I don't know why China or India wouldn't be able to organize things equally well or better.

First off, you are comparing three modern, industrialized, developed places with China and India.

Second, these nations may be doing well in managing large populations, but you are talking about GROWING them. By LARGE numbers. I wonder how well Japan could "reasonably well manage" a Tokyo with an addition 10 million uneducated residents, much less do it with the resources available to an Indian city.

[St Leo]

Whereas DanS is right in the near-infinite resources of outer space, I would not include oil among them. Fresh water and possibly methane are plausible. Oil isn't.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Your language isn't that clear, but if I'm reading you correctly, then you haven't accounted for the people who are leaving the labor force for one reason or another.

hmmmm your right. thats an excellent point. so heres another link. china's labor force grew by 7 million people, employment grew by 7 million, and unemployment remained constant at 14 million (with massive underemployment). in other words, the country isnt going anywhere, because its not creating jobs fast enough.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2003/wp03210.pdf.

now this is where it gets interesting. they project that between 2003 - 2005, and 2010, there will be surplus new job seekers of 9 million, 9 miilion, 8 million, and 5 mil.

[DanS]

What I'm saying is that you are wildly unrealistic about the ability of cities in a contemporary developing nation like China to absorb the kind of numbers we are talking about, numbers which dwarf anything in the US experience.

While you are correct in absolute numbers, the growth of Chicago is on a similar scale and timeframe to that of many Chinese cities. To add to the mix, Chicago was absorbing rural people from all over the world, not only the rural Midwest.

It wasn't a "clean" process by any measure, but most of the problems in rapid urbanization proved not to be intractable and the result is a pretty nice city. Chicago is even spotting the Chinese a city-destroying fire or two.

First off, you are comparing three modern, industrialized, developed places with China and India.

I chose S. Korea for a reason. Only very recently has it moved into the ranks of developed countries. They only just moved to a 5 day work week, for instance.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
no, they didnt deregulate it properly. governments must come together to sell plots of sea where fisherman have exclusive rights to fish. the ocean is an excellent example of the govt not privatising.

The ludicrousness of this notion acts as a perfect example of why private ownership of land is absurd and immoral. Better satire could not be written.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
... farmers in the midewest get paid to produce things we dont even want.

Hell, yeah! Who needs wheat, corn or soybeans anyway?! We can get rid of our farmers growing that stuff stateside and become reliant upon foreign farmers to grow our food for us. Sounds like good fiscal planning to me. Hell, it worked for Rome, didn't it?

Gatekeeper

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The ludicrousness of this notion acts as a perfect example of why private ownership of land is absurd and immoral. Better satire could not be written

face it, we all look out for our own self interest

Hell, yeah! Who needs wheat, corn or soybeans anyway?! We can get rid of our farmers growing that stuff stateside and become reliant upon foreign farmers to grow our food for us. Sounds like good fiscal planning to me. Hell, it worked for Rome, didn't it?

if we wanted it at those price, we wouldnt need to subsidize them, would we? they wouldnt need our money to put food on their table.

[Sandman]

Nothing gets done by itself, but if you take a look at the Korean experience, they tend to do OK managing extreme population densities.

It's foolhardy to consider this proof that all population problems will always, in every instance, be solved by a modern society. Sure, some problems will be solved, maybe all of them will. But there is no guarantee.

You seem to think that human ingenuity is essentially limitless. I think it is exceptionally high, but there are still limits, and that we shouldn't tempt fate in an ill-considered population boom.

[DanS]

I need only be correct in holding that high economic growth will lead to more problems being solved than created, no matter the population growth (within reason).

Extreme population movements may create acute problems in this context, but an economy growing at a 7% or 9% rate is retiring lots more problems than it is creating and will eventually retire most of the acute problems. Indeed, the acute problems come bundled with lots of human resources to solve those problems.

What I am saying is hardly revolutionary. It's the entirely rational bet that the Chinese government is making, after all, minus the "no matter the population growth" part.

[DanS]

This seems seriously divorced from reality. Slowing down growth will increase ground water? Huh? Desertification is happening here because in many areas there is NO more water available at ANY realistic cost. I'm sorry, but it is not simply a matter of more efficiently extracting it. And forgive me for saying so, but some of your other proposed solutions ("just build more subways") are ludicrous for a developing nation where many lack even basic education. Throttling back growth will further limit available funds for all those new subway lines.

I'll take the air and water examples on board, but consider the example of the resource of concrete. Concrete is hard to come by in the US nowadays because the Chinese economy is growing so quickly. We can create more supply for this resource no problem (i.e., there's no real hard-and-fast limitation to its production), but it's tough to manage this increase when it is so rapid. In this instance, it might make sense to throttle back the growth a couple of percent in order to facilitate rational management of this growth.

Another example resource is electricity. As I understand it, wide swaths of China experience blackouts and brownouts due to demand outstripping supply. Again, there's no real hard and fast limitation to this resource -- just build another nuke plant. But it might make sense to ratchet down the demand a percent or two in order that the building of your nuke plants is on a favorable basis and not so many coal-fired plants are used to generate electricity.

Overall, the Chinese economy is throwing off extreme amounts of resources. The Chinese are accumulating capital at a furious clip. So while Shanghai might not be able to build more train stations at every instance that it wishes, over time it will be able to solve its problems with some budgeting. This need not be a precise exercise. Shanghai can screw up right and left (see, f.e., the low occupancy rate in Shanghai office buildings), but the margin available for success is pretty high.

[Master Zen]

So, are you assuming that ALL countries will be achieving high growth rates eventually? Because that's a pretty big assumption. If it doesn't happen, guess the problem won't be solved everywhere, will it?