jerry okamura

Ran across an interesting bit of information. That is the US Census Bureau
projections on US population trends. It shows that if you assume that
immigration level is at the replacement level, the population of the US is
predicted to start declining around 2020. Now think about what the
ramifications of that is on a whole series of issues/problems we discuss.
How does that impact things like a solution to our transportation problems
that we have today, to solutions to the fiscal crisis facing social
security, to people worried about the increasing population in cities, to
whether we will have enough food to feed the population of the United
States.

What is the impact of that national trend to the problems we talk about here
in Hawaii, if the population in Hawaii actually starts to decrease rather
than increase.

martinez

Isnt it projected to increase though?

2030 363 mil


According to the Census site Year 2100

Zero international migration --- 377 mil
Middle est --- 570 mil
High est --- over 1 billion


That makes you wonder if the claims of a mild soc security deficit
include a super high projection in pop growth using high immigration
levels

http://www.census.gov/population/projections/nation/summary/np-t1.pdf

razzbar

I think the population of Hawaii actually did drop for a while in the
nineties. It
certainly has at other times in the past.

The effect of decrease of population is going to vary according to how
great
and sudden the population changes, naturally. In the overall long run
big picture
at the end of the day, the bottom line.... A slight drop in population
would have
a slight effect on things. Lots of things will have changed before the
population
changes enough to notice.

If there was a sudden population drop of say, 100,000 on Oahu, there
would
be a lot of businesses close, putting people out of work. If those
people
are the ones who left, things would balance out.

I think things would be fine if an island had a population of say, a
few
hundred.

jerry okamura

Looking at the chart, it peaks around 2030 at t 255 million, then after
that
it starts to decline, according the the data shown at the web site
http://www.numbersusa.com. The census projects that the population by
2050
at 420 million, so there is a disconnect between the two numbers. The
census number assumes that net immigration is zero. But by the
governments
own estimate, 86% of the population growth will be due to immigration
from
2000 through 2002, it does not mention whether that only counts legal immigration.

Yes, it does make you wonder what the social security numbers assume.
But
then, that estimate of population growth and its effects is a two way
street, it could be on the high side, or the low side.

jerry okamura

I would think it is not the short term that we should be concerned
about,
but what the long term effects would be, if that trend continued.

martinez

If any of these numbers like 400 lil to 1 bil are true for the next
20-70 years Yeeesh. I was pro immigration in the past because I knew
birthrates had fallen in the developed world and they all were on the
hook about supporting their welfare state politcies to various degrees
with a shrinking pop and large graying demographic BUT I think a huge
majority in the US would never want 500 mil -1 bil people living in
the same space we do now !

If environmentalists are whining now --- the US will be trashed in the
this century with that many people and even hawaii would feel the
influence. Rabbit hutch type living qtrs would probably become much
more common and that would influece Hawaii maybe too maybe this place
would end up wall to wall 50 story condos with people packed like
sardines.

jerry okamura

A couple of thoughts. If the population does decline, what do you
suppose
the economic impact of that will be? If that results in a serious
decline
in our per capita growth rate, wouldn't some of the same people, or
perhaps
another group of people, be crying "foul? And what is the problem with
Social Security? The problem with Social Security is that there are
too few
people paying for those of us who are retired, and that number is
projected
to go down. So, if population declines, then who is going to pay for
those
who are on Social Security when that happens. And if the population
does
decline, and that decline here in Hawaii. what do you think will happen
to
all of those high rise apratements...could they just be empty relics of
the
past?