Drew Wilson

May 29 2008, 12:55 pm

Not even close.

I randomly started thinking about this and spent a few minutes doing some basic research. Here is what I found.

First you need to define what is a comfortable amount of space for a person to live in. For this example I am using San Francisco. It's not the most densely populated city out there, but it does have a lot of people and they seem to enjoy living there (not me though... not a big city person).

In San Francisco the city (not the bay area) there are 764,976 people living there among all the businesses, hospitals, churches, etc. San Francisco the city is 48 sq. miles. So there are 16,000 people per sq. mile. Great, now we have some data to do some math with.

There are 6.6 billion people in the world today. Thats a lot.
Now divide 6.6 billion by 16,000. That will give you how many sq. miles it will take to hold all the people in the world with the same living conditions as San Fransisco.

You end up with 41,250 sq. miles. So what does that much space actually look like? Well, the 35th largest state in the USA is Ohio (that means it is pretty small compared to the other states :) Ohio is 41,330 sq. miles.

Thats right, the entire world's population can fit into the state of Ohio with the same living conditions as the city of San Francisco.

So no... the world is not over populated.

I am reminded of a road trip I took across the USA once. There is nobody living anywhere in the middle of the USA, only on the coasts is it really populated. The USA has SOO much empty space. And thats a good thing :) For instance the state of North Dakota has just 640,000 people. Alaska has 670,000 people. Both states have less people than the city of (not the whole county, just the city) San Diego... Combined!

I have been to many places around the globe as well, and found that there really is a lot of open space. Now of course some is desert, but that really does not have any impact on just how small amount of people live in the world today. It's crazy to me to think we can all fit in Ohio?! I have been to Ohio... that's crazy awesome :)

Just some random info for you all. Hope you enjoy!

Peace,
Drew

Thoughts

4 Comments

-oAk- Says,

this reminds me of something I read recently in (i think) Liberal Fascism. The author was paraphrasing economist Thomas Sowell who once worked out that if you divided the world's population into families of four, gave each a house and 5000 sq. feet of land the entire world population could live comfortably in the state of Texas. (I'm not vouching for this...I don't know how accurate his math is, the idea just stuck in my head and what you've posted here reminded me of it).

30 May 2008, 3:35 pm

Bradley Furnish Says,

Your math is great, but it over simplifies the debate. Overpopulation is considered to be in effect when a population has exceeded the carrying capacity of the environment. It takes far more than one square mile to provide food, shelter, clothing, and luxuries to 16,000 people. That metric is constantly in debate and increases with a person's standard of living. The argument mostly boils down to whether or not we have the capacity to sustain the human race's current growth with the standard of living that the Western world expects. I personally don't believe we've reached overpopulation, even at an American standard of living, but I do believe that our current growth rate and environmental abuses are non-sustainable and will eventually lead to a disastrous overpopulation. Interesting post. Thanks.

29 May 2008, 1:57 pm

Drew Wilson Says,

Resources would probably improve if everyone were huddled together in a small area. It would leave all the other places that used to have cities and buildings open to becoming farm land.

Now don't get me wrong... I would hate the idea of everyone being crammed into a San Francisco type city, because I like my space :) So I am fine with how the world is now :) I mainly did this because I always here about over population, and I am always like "what?? that can't be true." And now I know it's not true :)

Peace Jarad!

Drew

29 May 2008, 1:24 pm

Jarad Johnson Says,

Love it! Really awesome when someone works with the numbers to figure things out I've never really thought about but wish I had. What about resources? When there be a limit of natural resources consumed that would keep the population from expanding even if there is plenty of room? Either way, I'm sure we have a ways to go. Ohio...awesome.

29 May 2008, 1:07 pm