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October 17, 2006
Watching the odometer turn
Remember when you were a kid and you couldn't wait to see the odometer in the family car turn over to some multiple of 10,000. Of course in today's cars the odometers are digital, so it's about as exciting as seeing your digital watch tick past midnight. Those old odometers looked like they really had to work to turn that last digit.
And so it is with the U.S. population clock which, as I write this, stands at 299,998,288. You can check the current number for yourself by going to the Census Bureau web site. In the morning, the big three-oh-oh (million) will have been reached. The Census Bureau's clock, like my odometer, is digital. The addition, be it by birth or by immigration, will arrive seemingly effortlessly. I think that is a good analogy. We're not running out of room in this country by any stretch of the imagination. Our society and economy will absorb the 300,000,000th person as readily as the 299,999,999th. And by 2050, we'll be adding number 400,000,000--a fact which causes Joel Kotkin to opine in the Wall Street Journal:
Unless there is some sort of cultural revolution, most people, particularly families, are likely to continue migrating to places where they can acquire a spot of land and a little privacy. And despite the much ballyhooed "return to the city" by aging boomers, most experts suggest that most are either staying in the suburbs or moving to towns farther out in the hinterland. At least 30% of Americans, according to surveys by the National Association of Realtors and the Fannie Mae Foundation, express the desire to move to the country or a small environment, far more than live there now. The scale of this dispersion depends largely on urban governance. If cities cannot, due to economic or regulatory constraints, provide sufficient job opportunities, people and businesses naturally will flee elsewhere. Other factors, such as preserving family-friendly neighborhoods and stamping out a nascent resurgence in crime, will also be critical.
Yes, we will find room for number 400,000,000 too. There is room for a few of you out here. Sorry, no "for sale" signs on my block. The few that were available this summer have long since been sold. Unlike some places, the real estate market here seems to be approximately in equilibrium. Growth is proceeding sensibly. I still have to get used to the sight of a new apartment complex a mile or two south of us. More room for the next hundred million Americans.
So rejoice at this milestone. Malthus was wrong. We're not doomed by population growth. While a growing country has always presented certain challenges, it has been our innovative responses to those challenges that have made this country what it is. And it's a reason that people keep coming.
To the 300,000,000th American: Welcome! We're glad you're here.
Posted by William Polley at October 17, 2006 1:19 AM
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