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The USA is about 40 times larger than the UK in land mass, but only has a population 5 times larger. You would need to increase your population from 320 millio
by mike-cardwell 9y ago
The USA is about 40 times larger than the UK in land mass, but only has a population 5 times larger.
You would need to increase your population from 320 million to 2.6 billion to have the same population density as us.
You have so much free space you could absorb the entire population of Europe. Logistics aside. Which makes some US citizens fear of immigration even more laughable.
- chii 9y agoThe fear isn't due to space, but jobs and the perceived toll on social welfare and other facilities.
- snthd 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_fallacy
- thriftwy 9y agoBut come to think of that, immigration doesn't target flyover areas - not so many immigrants come to middle of nowhere places. Instead the (desirable) coast areas get packed. Maybe the fears of immigration are laughable, maybe not, but your argument doesn't hold water.
- Robotbeat 9y agoThat's false. There are lots of immigrants to Minnesota, from places like Laos, Mexico, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Heck, Minneapolis/St.Paul is one of the largest groupings of the Somali diaspora. Immigrants don't just live in the cities but also small towns. But anyway, who makes the mort stink about immigrants? The exact place you say immigrants aren't coming: flyover country.
- Robotbeat 9y agoBy the way, Minnesota is historically fairly welcoming to immigrants. Blame Lutheran, Gerrison Keiller type values, I guess.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zf00002 9y agoMinnesota also has a very large Hmong population.
- Robotbeat 9y agoThat's what I meant when I said Laos, although you're right they're from several countries there.
- _delirium 9y agoTexas also has both a huge amount of land, and a large number of immigrants (around 15-20% of the state's population is foreign-born).
- RugnirViking 9y agoDo you have any insight for someone that knows very little about american geography as to why this is?
- thriftwy 9y ago> who makes the mort stink A nice idea if you ever want to get your point across in a democratic society: stop calling opponents' opinions "stink". Seeing this they will only strengthen in feeling that you are selling something undesirable to them.
- pfranz 9y agoI have no idea about the numbers, but had a coworker whose family was from Liberia and moved to Minnesota as a kid. I know I've heard news stories about groups of Somali immigrants in places like Columbus, OH. Yeah, those places aren't the least dense areas in the U.S., but I was expecting immigrants to almost exclusively be in port cities on the coast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Americans#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Americans#Demographics
- pix64 9y agoDepends entirely on the immigrants themselves. Cost of living is ridiculously high in "desirable" coastal cities. Most immigrants can't afford that.
- lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 9y agoDon't know where you get that idea from. Nowadays a good amount of immigrants are far richer than average American
- sciurus 9y agoYet here in Nashville, Tennessee we have the largest population of Kurds in the United States. http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2013/feb/23/nashvilles-new-nick-name-little-kurdistan/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2013/feb/23/...
- maxsilver 9y ago> immigration doesn't target flyover areas - not so many immigrants come to middle of nowhere places. Instead the (desirable) coast areas get packed. In addition to the other examples already mentioned, suburban Detroit has the largest Arab-American population in the entire US. http://michiganradio.org/post/what-explains-michigans-large-arab-american-community http://michiganradio.org/post/what-explains-michigans-large-...
- catmanjan 9y agoUnfortunately you don't just need empty space for people to live, just ask Australians who are effectively limited to the coast or the east. England is lucky in that what little land it has is good for humans to live in.
- mike-cardwell 9y agoOf course, yes. I suspect that as transit, farming and energy technology improves over the next century or two, we'll find a lot more of that space livable.
- ianai 9y agoYou've clearly never been to southern Nevada or the Bible Belt.
- titanix2 9y agoAustralia is beside USA and Taiwan a good example that suspicion about immigration is not just an irrational fear.
- eon1 9y agoAustralian here. Can you clarify what is meant by this?
- contravariant 9y agoTo be fair immigration is more of a logistics problem than a space problem.
- rayiner 9y ago> Which makes some US citizens fear of immigration even more laughable. Even leaving aside the fact that much of the U.S. is not easily habitable, that's a straw man. Even if there is land for more people doesn't mean we have the resources to offer a robust safety net for all those people. (Ironically, many so-called progressives in the U.S. defend immigration by asserting that immigrants do below-minimum wage jobs nobody wants to do and don't use social services for fear of being deported. How that's a good thing escapes me.)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]