7 ms·

It will not continue seeing such rapid growth for another few hundred years, world population will plateau by mid century and even the big cities will at some p

by ido 3y ago

It will not continue seeing such rapid growth for another few hundred years, world population will plateau by mid century and even the big cities will at some point stop growing.

codetrotter 3y ago
Why?
- ido 3y ago
  Because birth rates are going down worldwide and at some point the people who wanted to move away from the countryside/poor countries to the big global cities would have already moved (those left behind are older than the ones leaving, so such places will have even lower birth rates). The major global cities will still grow in the next 200 years compared to now, just not as much as they have the previous 200 years.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  birth rates in pretty much every developed nation are below replacement level. Some countries are using migration as a sort of band-aid fixed but the worst fears are starting to come true recently. Previously some people had thought or hoped that falling birthrates was/is a natural concequence of becoming rich enough, that as countries develop kids are seen as less of a necessity. But iirc newer data shows falling birthrates even in poorer nations that are stagnant/not developing. They are still well above replacement rate for now but its not a good trend. As for reasons why: nobody has one single cause, but a major one is that current economies mean children are more of a cost than a benefit, and even the most ambitious incentive programs dont make up for the toll of both working a job and taking care of a helpless human. As for why this is a bad thing: There are a lot of inbuilt assumptions to the way society is structured that will begin to break down. Things like: there are more workers than retirees. There are more students than teachers. There are more juior employees than managers. When these kinds of things start to change, we will have to adapt society or things will just fall apart. You're already starting to see previews of this sort of crisis in sectors where few young people join, like becoming merchant ship captains. People having to be called back from retirement, buisnesses failing not from lack of buisness but from lack of employees
  - noelwelsh 3y ago
    The human population cannot grow indefinitely without moving to other planets, which is very much infeasible now and probably infeasible into the foreseeable future. Society just has to adapt. The problem I see is our current leaders are only interested in pushing the problem down the road. Declining population (which won't actually decline till 2080-ish IIRC) is not in itself a problem.
    - RugnirViking 3y ago
      I agree. This is a transitory state, where a lot of assumption built into the social contract will break down. If we can fix them (and presumably we will... eventually), there is nothing inherently bad about a declining population. But in the meantime things may get interesting.
    - kiba 3y ago
      We still have plenty of room on this planet, and upcoming medical technology may change the equation on the number of people dying. I hope to start a family before people start imposing measure to limit population growth.
      - RugnirViking 3y ago
        it is extrodinarily unlikely anyone will do such as thing. As I noted earlier. the birth rate is below replacement rate in almost all developed countries. If not for immigrants population would be shrinking. If anything they would demand more children...
        kiba 3y ago
        It is because the elderly are dying, same as they always been dying through out the ages. The older you get the more likely you are to die. The current demographic trend is based on this assumption. It goes out the window the moment we start meaningfully reducing the probability of death.
smugma 3y ago
Inner London population peaked over 100 years ago.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  You see thus in most of paris as well. Population in 1860 was 4 to 5 times what it is today in the same area.
- ido 3y ago
  But the "suburbs" (some of them would not be considered suburbs but simply outer parts of the city in a lot of other places in the world) are immensely more populous than 100 years ago.

by ido 3y ago

It will not continue seeing such rapid growth for another few hundred years, world population will plateau by mid century and even the big cities will at some point stop growing.

codetrotter 3y ago

Why?

ido 3y ago
Because birth rates are going down worldwide and at some point the people who wanted to move away from the countryside/poor countries to the big global cities would have already moved (those left behind are older than the ones leaving, so such places will have even lower birth rates). The major global cities will still grow in the next 200 years compared to now, just not as much as they have the previous 200 years.
RugnirViking 3y ago
birth rates in pretty much every developed nation are below replacement level. Some countries are using migration as a sort of band-aid fixed but the worst fears are starting to come true recently. Previously some people had thought or hoped that falling birthrates was/is a natural concequence of becoming rich enough, that as countries develop kids are seen as less of a necessity. But iirc newer data shows falling birthrates even in poorer nations that are stagnant/not developing. They are still well above replacement rate for now but its not a good trend. As for reasons why: nobody has one single cause, but a major one is that current economies mean children are more of a cost than a benefit, and even the most ambitious incentive programs dont make up for the toll of both working a job and taking care of a helpless human. As for why this is a bad thing: There are a lot of inbuilt assumptions to the way society is structured that will begin to break down. Things like: there are more workers than retirees. There are more students than teachers. There are more juior employees than managers. When these kinds of things start to change, we will have to adapt society or things will just fall apart. You're already starting to see previews of this sort of crisis in sectors where few young people join, like becoming merchant ship captains. People having to be called back from retirement, buisnesses failing not from lack of buisness but from lack of employees
- noelwelsh 3y ago
  The human population cannot grow indefinitely without moving to other planets, which is very much infeasible now and probably infeasible into the foreseeable future. Society just has to adapt. The problem I see is our current leaders are only interested in pushing the problem down the road. Declining population (which won't actually decline till 2080-ish IIRC) is not in itself a problem.
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    I agree. This is a transitory state, where a lot of assumption built into the social contract will break down. If we can fix them (and presumably we will... eventually), there is nothing inherently bad about a declining population. But in the meantime things may get interesting.
  - kiba 3y ago
    We still have plenty of room on this planet, and upcoming medical technology may change the equation on the number of people dying. I hope to start a family before people start imposing measure to limit population growth.
    - RugnirViking 3y ago
      it is extrodinarily unlikely anyone will do such as thing. As I noted earlier. the birth rate is below replacement rate in almost all developed countries. If not for immigrants population would be shrinking. If anything they would demand more children...
      - kiba 3y ago
        It is because the elderly are dying, same as they always been dying through out the ages. The older you get the more likely you are to die. The current demographic trend is based on this assumption. It goes out the window the moment we start meaningfully reducing the probability of death.

smugma 3y ago

Inner London population peaked over 100 years ago.

snapplebobapple 3y ago
You see thus in most of paris as well. Population in 1860 was 4 to 5 times what it is today in the same area.
ido 3y ago
But the "suburbs" (some of them would not be considered suburbs but simply outer parts of the city in a lot of other places in the world) are immensely more populous than 100 years ago.