Posted on 09/02/2007 10:38:37 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON - Immigrants and their children will account for more than half the country's population growth over the coming half-century, according to a study released Thursday.
The examination of new census figures by the Center for Immigration Studies found U.S. population levels, currently around 300 million, will shoot up to 468 million by 2060. California alone could be home to more than 60 million.
Immigrants - both legal and illegal - as well as their descendants are expected to make up about 105 million, or 63 percent, of the national increase.
"It's important to understand where we're headed in population size and why. The why is largely, but not exclusively, immigration," said Steven Camarota, author of the report.
The Center for Immigration Studies, a D.C.-based think tank, openly advocates immigration restrictions. While demographers across the ideological spectrum verified the group's numbers, opinions vary on what they mean for America's future.
William A.V. Clark, a geography professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called 468 million "a really huge number, and it's being driven by immigration, there's no doubt about that."
Neither politicians nor city planners are preparing for or even discussing immigration's impact on population growth, he said.
Meanwhile, the impact in California, which is home to about 10 million foreign-born, will be particularly acute.
"If you think the 405 is bad now, it won't be moving unless they put a double-decker bus on it," Clark said.
"This is like the elephant in the bathtub," he said. "We're not building the infrastructure for the population we have now, much less this kind of growth."
But Jeff Passell, spokesman for the Pew Hispanic Center, which also is preparing population projections based on immigration, noted that without newcomers the U.S. could not have a growing labor force.
Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning at USC, agreed.
Myers studies aging trends and called immigration part of the solution to the graying of America.
He noted that the ratio of senior citizens to working-age people will go up 30 percent in the next decade and spike another 30 percent after that.
"That is the central policy question America has to solve, and we have to solve it now," he said. Because foreigners who come to the U.S. tend to be young, he said, immigration can reduce the aging problem by about a quarter.
Myers also cast doubts on the study, noting that the analysis hinges on the assumption that fertility and immigration rates will both remain high.
Currently, the nation sustains an immigration rate of about 1.2 million annually, according to the study. Researchers based their projections partly on the past five decades, during which there has been a net immigration increase.
And government will steal what those immigrant workers pay into social security too.
Sisyphean/Ponzi solution.
Sure, you can get all the insecticide laden corn syrup from chemically fertilzed corn you could ever want.
What is your opinion about Germany?
They seem to have fairly normal lives by Western standards, and yet have roughly 90 million people on a land comparable in size to California.
Sure--we have so much land that every citizen can easily afford a few dozen acres overlooking the Atlantic or Pacific ocean.
Why, there's so much prime real estate in America, they're practically giving it away for free!
You mean the country that periodically goes crazy looking for more lebensraum?
And most important: a meaningless amount of seacoast.
Germans don't appear to live cheek-to-jowl. Granted, haven't visited there. However, pictures of many of their towns and cities seem to be either on the level of the United States' own towns and cities, or actually somewhat smaller--though not as small as some of those single digit populated villages in the mountain states.
Anyway, onto Europe again, they seem to have a decent balance of people to land, even more so since many European cities don't have particularly tall skyscrapers, many Europeans own their own homes (though many do rent 'flats,' you would have a point there).
You can live in landlocked, monotonous, boring flyover country if you want.
Count me out.
Apparently most other people prefer the coasts, too.
Fly over the coasts why don’t you?
Now we are becoming the wretched refuse of our own teeming shores.
Anything more than a handful of people in a handful of square miles, is all the people I need.
Sure, we all have so much room and resources that we recycle for the fun of sorting garbage and bundling papers.
And all those pollution regulations and fines are so entertaining.
And the United States has one of the largest coastlines in the world (even excluding Alaska's).
But that coastline might not be so big if China or India (or some multi-national coalition) attack and the United States doesn't have the population to defend the nation.
Would you have the population wither to 100 million, or even 30 million as in Canada, or 20 million as in Australia? You'd have square miles and square miles of prime property then, but would be encouraging a takeover by a hostile, foreign power.
A large population is helpful not only economically, but also militarily. Ideally 100 million armed American citizens would be able to repel an invasion, but they'd still be weaker than 1.5 billion armed Americans.
You sound like Ben Wattenberg during the panel discussion when this report was released at the National Press Club He said the same thing.
Of course, silly anecdotal observations like that are really irrelevant. I could say the same thing flying over the Sahara desert or Antartica or even China or India for that matter. People tend to settle where there are jobs and infrastructure not in the middle of nowhere or in some uninhabitable area.
We have added 100 million people since 1970 and will add another 118 million by 2050 according to the Bureau of the Census projections. According to the CIS study, if immigration continues at current levels, the nation’s population will increase from 301 million today to 468 million in 2060 — a 167 million (56 percent) increase. Immigrants plus their descendents will account for 105 million (63 percent) of the increase. The total projected growth of 167 million is equal to the combined populations of Great Britain, France, and Spain. The 105 million from immigration by itself is equal to 13 additional New York Cities.
All of these additional people will require infrastructuure, e.g., roads, water, energy, sewage treatment plants, food, hospitals, prisons, etc. along with social programs, schools, cars, etc.
Assimilation issues aside, do we want to have a nation of half a billion? What number of people do you consider to be OVERPOPULATED?
Most days I wake up feeling like this guy Bill from Gangs of NY, however, on the balance who can deny it’s not a wonderful thing to see our country filled out with productive happy people. We are a thriving growing continent. Bodes well for the future. I know we were crapping our pants re demographics and the social security system some 15 years ago anticipating the huge number of adult Americans (boomers) entering retirement. That’s been somewhat abated by the economics of mass immigration. Is it causing dislocation, fear and loathing? You betcha. Is it growing the economy like a mother. You betcha.
The vast majority of Germans live cheek-to-jowl. The elite don’t. That is what our elite is aiming for in this country, too.
Yup. Snort.
The RATs love this! More votes for more socialism. It’s nearly over, folks. Hitlery will see to it that the invasion will continue and the borders opened to any and all. The Republic will then die the death.
As for the pollution regulations, and the recycling, would put those down more to EUers and their global warming/climate change neo-religion than to a sign of high population density.
I say it means there’s a difference between eating meat and eating bodily fluids. In part of asia and africa for instance, there’s a lot more blood eating as a part of the culture. We repudiate this as barbaric. Maybe that’s the point?
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