Myth of Overcrowded Britain

[alanjjohnstone]

And once again this forum is being de-railed by those who are unable to rise above being baited. No wonder people like Ike treat us like a joke.I would have liked to see other contributorss offer their info on de-population of areas of Britain.Ireland another region that certainly isn't over-crowded once outside Dublin City

[TheMightyYoghourt]

Vincent, you disingenuous cockwit, it was only a few years ago when you were boasting about your history of knocking opponent's teeth out when they didn't agree with you.  And it was shortly after that when you said some very abusive things to me personally on Fuckbook.  Since you were being such a wanker, I blocked you and carried on writing.  Then you realised that I'd blocked you because people were writing about what I'd written and you couldn't see what I'd written.  At that point you tried to get party members to be outraged by the fact that I'd blocked you for being a cunt.Then you got expelled from the party.  For being a cunt. You voted against me being elected as an EC member.  Whilst serving on the EC I witnessed your machinations to get back into the party.  I spoke against you being re-admitted, because you'd caused no end of trouble with your puerile bollocks and threatened me personally. (Which, I might mention, I derived much amusement from.  You are a stupid old man and I hold a third dan black belt and could easily kick your bitchy little ass.) I left the party for two reasons.  The main one was the fact that ten reasonably intelligent people are incapable of making a rational decision together. Witness the Election Broadcast that cost £3000.  And the other one was that you were going to get back in the party. Motherfucker, you'd know who I am if you had half a brain.  I am no coward.  I am the Mighty Motherfucking Guru Yoghourt.  Get in the ring,No, actually, don't bother.

[alanjjohnstone]

MightyYoghurt – Another poster who thinks his personal views on another is of prime importance that it is worth sabotaging a very useful thread. No wonder this forum is losing its popularity.

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

MightyYoghurt – Another poster who thinks his personal views on another is of prime importance that it is worth sabotaging a very useful thread. No wonder this forum is losing its popularity.

This is one of the reasons why I prefer Yahoo forum software. The moderator only has to place in moderation this type of person and the moderator will filter the message. Simple, and there is no need to have so many rulers, regulations, and warnings. This forum is losing its main objectives

[robbo203]

Im not going to bother with the personal stuff which is getting a real bore now and just stick to the thread. It strikes me that people are taking a too polarised view on this subject. The world is capable of producing enough to satisfy the reasonable  needs of every person on this planet and from that point of view is not "overcrowded" – though I  think the term "overpopulated" would be more applicable.   It is nevertheless possible to agree with this statement  and still think the world is overcrowded but for quite other reasons e.g. the loss of natural habitat , species diversity etc.  Last year my partner and I visited Holland which is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and also of course one of the richest per capita.  The vista unfolding from the train window of a heavily built up and almost industrialised rural landscape did not appeal to me in the least – though I loved the ambience of some of the old historic towns like Leiden and Utrecht.  My reaction to the Dutch countryside was essentially an aesthetic one.  Wilderness has always had an appeal for me but I guess that comes from having been born in, and  spent my early years in South Africa. So I think it is legitimate to talk of some parts of the world being "overcrowded" providing one does not put some kind of Malthusian spin on this with the implication that socialism is out of the question becuase there are too many people on the planet to meet the needs of everyone.. If anything I would say if you want a less crowded world, socialism is the way to go.  It is economic circumstances that ultimately derive from the fact that we live in capitalist world that tned to make for high birth rates.  In the Global  South where a significant chunk of the population still live in the countryside and earn a living from farming , large families are indispensable not only as a household labour force but to provide for the old in the absence of a social welfare system.  Of course with urbanisation and declining infant mortality this is changing and we are begining to see quite sigifnicant falls in fertility rates in most of the Global South Another reason that tends to make for higher birth rates is the pro-natalist policies of many capitalist nation states which attach importantce to population size for obvious reasons – it gives them more clout on the world stage. Economists also  fret about the "dependency ratio" and the prospect of an aging population being supported by a decling fraction of the population of working age.  Yet absurdly the capitalist  nation state imposes barriers on the free movement of workers which would otherwise address this problem,  seeking instead to reform  the tax system to encourage large families

[alanjjohnstone]

I don't think the topic of this thread was town v, country but it will be an issue that will always turn up, particularly since it was a question first raised by Marx and Engels.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-829-september-1973/town-and-country-marxism%E2%80%99s-answer-problemsUnlike Robbo, i was city born and bred so i have an empathy for the charm of the city. I have also lived in very densely populated countries and recognise the problems.I think the issue is not that many will reject the town and city life but it will be re-shaped into livable centres rather than the shoe-box urban-sprawl and slum shanty-towns.William Morris vision for London was its return to its earlier town and village roots.It isn't inter-nation migration that is the real problem but the internal rural/urban migration that is taken place, depopulating large swathes of regions, leaving the land to the old folk to tend to.Robbo was lucky to be born in the pristine wilderness of the South African veldt. But the threat to such areas it isn't coming from nature being crowded out by people but the arrival of corporate pirates and cattle barons. And don't forget, Robbo, on your trip through the intensive agriculture of the Netherlands, at one time it was under the sea and/or salt marshes.The achievement was indeed remarkable that it was turned into farm-land, in the first place.In China, as the fruits of the one-child policy, there is something called the 1-2-4 problem, one adult child now supporting two parents and four grand-parents.

[Young Master Smeet]

I say lets concrete over the lot, build arcologies and be served by robots, and then taunt our children with pictures of the natural beauty we have destroyed.Everyone needs a hobby.More seriously, given that humans have always terraformed their enviornment (per the high counters case of what happened to the Americas after the small pox plague, that the human centred environment fell apart).We have oceans we could fill up with arftificial islands (made of collected plastic?), even upper orbit and below the ground if we need.As far as I know, the only practical limit on human populations is phosphorous, and we could probably mine some asteroids for that…

[alanjjohnstone]

Here is a story of Central America and its once teeming population that the "pristine" forests have hidden from us http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/maya-guatemala-jungle-mayan-structures-hidden-buildings-thousands-survey-scan-a8190626.html

Quote:

“There are entire cities we didn’t know about now showing up in the survey data,” Professor Francisco Estrada-Belli, an archaeologist at Boston University, “There are 20,000 square kilometres more to be explored and there are going to be hundreds of cities in there that we don’t know about. I guarantee you.”

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 Robbo was lucky to be born in the pristine wilderness of the South African veldt. But the threat to such areas it isn't coming from nature being crowded out by people but the arrival of corporate pirates and cattle barons. 

 Well , truth be told, Alan,  it was not in the pristine wilderness of South Africa that I was born  but in a rather large and unappealing South African city called Germiston (near Joburg) whose only notable feature  apart from being surrounded by goldmine dumps is to be the largest railway junction in  Southern Africa.  That said we did  frequently as a family venture into the bush  and my love for wilderness sprang  from these experiences I wouldnt say it is entirely down to corporate pirates and cattle barons that wilderness is being encroached upon.  Population growth is also a factor although there are complex linkages between these factors.  Land grabs for example have displaced many subsistence farmers in various parts of the world pushing them onto ecologically marginal land that then becomes subject to environmental deterioration

alanjjohnstone wrote:

And don't forget, Robbo, on your trip through the intensive agriculture of the Netherlands, at one time it was under the sea and/or salt marshes.The achievement was indeed remarkable that it was turned into farm-land, in the first place.

 Yes thats a fair point.   But as I say my reaction  to the rural landscape of Holland was a purely aesthetic one .  I thought it was dreary even ugly at times with its criss crossing  network of power lines, and heavily built up.   Other people might think quite differently about it.  that is their prerogative.  I prefer a less cluttered and as I say, less overcrowded landcape.  That does not make Holland or the UK for that matter "overcrowded" from the standpoint of being able to feed their respective populations and that is essentially the point Im making. – that there are different senses in which you can talk of a country being overcrowded

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

I wouldnt say it is entirely down to corporate pirates and cattle barons that wilderness is being encroached upon.  Population growth is also a factor although there are complex linkages between these factors.  Land grabs for example have displaced many subsistence farmers in various parts of the world pushing them onto ecologically marginal land that then becomes subject to environmental deterioration

I concede i was being a bit too simplistic. But rather than blame it on population growth, i think a more accurate description would be population re-location. The problem of land-grab apart from oil/mining is palm oil, soy and cattle and where do the displaced and dispossessed go – in the main to urban centres. They give up on farming entirely so i don't think we can blame the influx of people fleeing the giant mono-cultural plantations and ranches to marginal land a cause of desertification or degradation. Certainly not compared to climate change events. But i think this thread was originally started to counter those who oppose immigration on the grounds that UK/EU was overcrowded or that supporting more people was unsustainable. Neither premise is true. 

[moderator1]

TheMightyYoghourt wrote:

Vincent, you disingenuous cockwit, it was only a few years ago when you were boasting about your history of knocking opponent's teeth out when they didn't agree with you.  And it was shortly after that when you said some very abusive things to me personally on Fuckbook.  Since you were being such a wanker, I blocked you and carried on writing.  Then you realised that I'd blocked you because people were writing about what I'd written and you couldn't see what I'd written.  At that point you tried to get party members to be outraged by the fact that I'd blocked you for being a cunt.Then you got expelled from the party.  For being a cunt. You voted against me being elected as an EC member.  Whilst serving on the EC I witnessed your machinations to get back into the party.  I spoke against you being re-admitted, because you'd caused no end of trouble with your puerile bollocks and threatened me personally. (Which, I might mention, I derived much amusement from.  You are a stupid old man and I hold a third dan black belt and could easily kick your bitchy little ass.) I left the party for two reasons.  The main one was the fact that ten reasonably intelligent people are incapable of making a rational decision together. Witness the Election Broadcast that cost £3000.  And the other one was that you were going to get back in the party. Motherfucker, you'd know who I am if you had half a brain.  I am no coward.  I am the Mighty Motherfucking Guru Yoghourt.  Get in the ring,No, actually, don't bother.

Indefinite suspension:7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages. 8. Do not register or operate more than one account without first obtaining permission from the moderators. Do not share your password with others or allow anyone else to use your account. Do not use your account to post messages on behalf of any suspended user, without prior permission from the moderators.  This user has been suspended indefinitely for using a sock puppet account to gain access to the forum when he had been previously suspended indefinitley under Rule 7.

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

Can you offer any proof for this? I have never committed any act of violence and anyone who knows me would testify to that.  

 I'll swear on a dozen Communist Manifestos. Last time Vin had a fight he was just eleven. Only won that because she had an asthma attack.

[moderator1]

Bob Andrews wrote:

Vin wrote:

Can you offer any proof for this? I have never committed any act of violence and anyone who knows me would testify to that.  

 I'll swear on a dozen Communist Manifestos. Last time Vin had a fight he was just eleven. Only won that because she had an asthma attack.

1st warning: 7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages.

[alanjjohnstone]

Another bit of info.Green space – both private and public parks, gardens, grounds, covers 54% of the urban land area, 1,593 square kilometres – the equivalent of 22 Loch Lomonds.This equates to 27 hectares of green space per 1,000 people (excluding private gardens) – equivalent to a tennis court size of green space per person.https://www.hortweek.com/green-space-use-scotland-falls-20-amid-reports-decline-quality-study-finds/parks-and-gardens/article/1456085

[alanjjohnstone]

Placing over-crowding in context. Bradford also has one of the highest levels of youth unemployment in the UK: 26% of young people were out of work in 2015, up from 11.3% in 2004.  More than 30% of the population here are currently under the age of 20, and the city has the highest number of under-16s in the country, giving Bradford the unusual title of being the UK’s youngest city.To Adam Mathers, 17, that means one thing: overcrowding.“It’s too small and crowded here, people feel there’s no way out,” says Mathers, who was born and raised in the city and is now one of the 20,000 students at Bradford College. “Young people are always competing for the same jobs."With nearby Leeds a more attractive prospect for young jobseekers – it is the second largest employment centre outside of London, and home to the headquarters of global companies including Asda, Tetley and First Direct – those who stay in Bradford have limited options. After the closure of the city’s textile mills, its largest employer, the majority of jobs in Bradford now fall into skilled trades, retail and administrative sectors.With the population estimated to grow by an average of 2,000 people a year for at least the next 10 years, the inherent problem facing Bradford’s youth – too many people competing for too few jobs – will continue.“A lot of our students don’t leave Bradford, they don’t go out of this bubble,” says the college’s head of health and social care, Wesley McGlinchey. “We’ll take them on trips to the seaside because they’ve never seen sand or the sea. You have to open their eyes to the world and help them develop aspirations.”https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/05/life-britain-youngest-city-bradford-uk-unemployment

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