In 1972 I was working a summer job at a marina. Mowing, hauling fish guts and heads, watermelon rinds and such to the dump, etc. Real glamor job.
I would go inside the store there at lunch and watch the news while sitting on the floor to eat my lunch.
I distinctly remember the announcement of our population having passed 200,000,000 and thought there were too many people.
Since those days our little county has at least doubled in population. The highway in front of the farm is now more like a freeway. I once had to wait for a long time to hear a distant car coming down the road at night and now there are cars at 2 AM regularly going by.
There were only five houses in sight across the valley as seen from our little hill, now there are 12.
Things are not better, there are no more meaningful jobs than there were, there is more poverty, more aimless lives, more crime, more drugs and alcoholism, more pollution, more trash, less community pride and responsibility.
Once upon a time the location of jobs controlled population cells. Not now. The west will look like a series of strip mall developments. Most will never venture into the back country but there will be enough that do the area will be forever changed. Once you have so many people there is never the opportunity to escape with an original idea. If you have the thought of going to a quiet place on a pretty day so have 10,000 others. You will never be alone again except in your own small space. I wish I was surrounded by trees in my own little corner of the world instead of in the middle of a big pasture that is more like a fishbowl now.
The Internet has done a lot to help people “discover” previously unknown places. I’ve got a number of favorite parks and hiking trails near my house. Up until ten years ago, they were undiscovered and largely empty. Now the parking lots are always full and the trails crowded. Once I get past the one mile point, the trails empty out and generally at two or three miles you won’t see a soul.
The change in the past ten years has been huge.
As much as COVID is a major pain in the neck, our road traffic here on the San Francisco Peninsula is still down by two-thirds and maybe three-quarters. There aren’t as many insane drivers out. There are normally packed intersections here that used to take two or three light changes to get through. Now I’m often pulling up at the light as the first car. People seem to be taking life more slowly now.
At this point the elites are moving CONSUMERS, not WORKERS, into many areas; they’re subsidized by US taxpayers, and increasingly, by US companies.
Every year I see more and more news stories of “free” school supplies and holiday food giveaways; the recipients look like the same people who’ve been given everything else for free as well. The decline of those seeking the original American Dream (opportunity to work for a better life) has never been more noticeable...