You may not like the idea of people living on top of others, but the urban lifestyle far outstrips the rural lifestyle in most measurable health statistics — especially in British Columbia where there are more smokers, obesity, diabetes and heart attacks in Northern BC versus the South.
 
The activity options provided by the metropolis standard also outstrips those of most rural areas, where — sure — you can go out and hunt, go out and hike and go to an isolated lake, but your options start to run dry from there… not that you’ll be dry.
 
But there is a nation where population control is already in effect: China. If that’s a nation you’d like to in well then Zàijiàn punk. 

Posted by Illimart on 6 September 2011 @ 3am

I feel like you’ve missed my point.
At no point do I suggest population control. I simply question what target population sizes are. Generally, conversation is around how to get the population to grow, but I’ve never heard a conversation about how big we want to get before we stop growing.
Your points on the relative health of rural vs urban areas are not at all related to what I said. Your facts are true, but the correlation isn’t necessarily there. Living in rural areas doesn’t make you smoke. It also holds that in the case of an epidemic you’re probably better off somewhere remote. Superbugs aren’t coming from sparsely populated areas. But that’s very much a tangent.
Activities: each to their own. There’s very little I can’t do here that I can in Vancouver that I have a real desire to. On the other hand, I can afford a place to live.
And I’ve lived in China. First, the “population control” practiced there is far more nuanced and far less draconian than most people would have you believe (not that there aren’t issues, just that it’s not as intense as you seem to think). If I’m not mistaken, the one-child policy is now gone.
Second, I’d challenge you to live in an intensely urbanized portion of China and continue to think that we should be doing everything we can to encourage even more population growth.
Also, you forgot to mention that high population densities have lower environmental impact. I’m aware of the upsides of cities. That doesn’t make me think every city in the world should aim to be the size of Shanghai.
And to finish up: if the fact that smoking, obesity, and strokes occurs more in northern BC than in southern can be chalked up to population size, can we extend the same arguments to undernourishment in the slums of India’s large cities?

Posted by Andrew on 6 September 2011 @ 4am

I remember once Dave talked about how he’d read a scholarly article that posited that the ideal population size for a city is either 100 000 or 200 000.  I forget which.  He’d remember.  But anyway, based on certain criteria, that’s what a select group of people came up with. 
I think a city should be big enough, and well-planned out enough, to have good public transit and a wide array of cultural and recreational activities, but not so big that it takes you an hour and a half to drive or commute to work in the morning, or so that you cannot enjoy the array of cultural and recreational activities.  Whenever we go to the Lower Mainland, I’m so glad I don’t live in such a traffic-y place.  My uncle’s commute to work in the morning can take anywhere from 30 to 120 mins, depending on traffic, even if he leaves at the same time.  That’s bonkers.
I like busy beaches.  You get a certain sense of community, even though you may be packed onto Third Beach in Stanley Park with hundreds of strangers.  It’s kind of fun having all of those people around and being able to people watch. 

Posted by Roxannabelle on 6 September 2011 @ 6am

I’m not sure it’s the same thing, but I’m fairly certain Plato or Aristotle came up with 100,000. But that was a thought experiment, rather than an actual survey.
I agree with your criteria, though.
I like people watching, too, but I’m glad I’m not forced into doing it all the time.

Posted by Andrew on 6 September 2011 @ 2pm

[…] already expressed by suspicion of the growth gospel in a previous post. In it, I wrote: “Maybe we need growth in the short term, and even in the medium term. We’re in a […]

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