Consequences of Growth

Had the Rockefeller Commission's recommendations been adopted in 1972, the United States would clearly be heading down a different population path.  In all likelihood, fertility would be a matter of public discourse, couples would be encouraged to have small families, and immigration rates would be substantially lower.  In sum, the United States would be a smaller country, in terms of population, than it is now.

At our current rate of growth, the U.S. will  add almost 130 million more people by 2050.

The question is, would this matter?  Would life be better now had the Commission's recommendations been adopted?  Will life be worse in the future because we dismissed the Commission's goals?  The remainder of this paper attempts to answer these questions, first by examining what Nixon and other policy makers three decades ago were concerned about when they considered creating a national population policy.  Next, we'll examine what has happened as a result of not adopting such a policy.  Finally, we'll illustrate the importance of moving toward a national population policy now to achieve an optimum population size for the United States.  In short, we will show that the concerns of the Rockefeller Commission were not only warranted in 1972, but that the need for creating a national population policy today is even more pressing than it was three decades ago.

Although the Rockefeller Commission addressed a broad range of issues in their analysis, two primary concerns drove Nixon and other policy makers to explore the possibility of creating a national population policy.  The first was a concern about the declining quality of our cities, and the second was a concern about the declining quality of the environment.

Starting in the late 1960s, urban renewal arrived on the political landscape demanding significant attention from legislators.  Policy makers were concerned that U.S. cities were becoming more expansive, crowded and unlivable.  Policy makers worried that a declining quality of life for urban residents would promote urban sprawl, increased pollution, higher energy consumption and the loss of green space while forcing urban blacks into the poorer and poorer central cities. Senator Patrick D. Moynihan (D-New York) was one of the strongest proponents arguing for a shift in U.S. urban policy, and he believed that continued U.S. population growth would serve only to worsen these problems.¹¹

Policy makers at this time were also very concerned about the state of the environment, and unchecked population growth was seen as a significant threat to environmental quality.  During this period numerous articles were written and national and international conferences were held to discuss the interplay between population growth and the environment.  In November 1964, President Lyndon Johnson's administration released a policy paper on conservation and natural resources that noted an explicit link between population growth and environmental degradation.  The paper pointed out that among other things, "by the year 2000 more than 300 million American will need 10 times the power and 2 ½ times the water we now consume..."¹²

Nixon was sympathetic to both these concerns, arguing in 1969 that continued growth could only lead to negative consequences:  "Look ahead to the end of this century," he said.  "There are 200 million Americans now.  By the end of the century there will be 300 million.  Where are those 100 million going to be?  You can't pour them into New York, into Los Angeles, into Chicago and the rest and choke those cities to death with smog and crime and all of the rest that comes with overpopulation."¹³
 
 

Predictions that Came True

But, in fact, that is exactly what we have done and just as our legislators were concerned, our communities and our environment have paid the price. Our Communities As population growth in our cities has increased, so have congestion, crime and competition for housing.  As a result, Americans have taken to the suburbs to find cheaper housing and to regain open space and solitude.

Americans flocking to the suburbs greatly  outnumber those choosing to live in our cities.

Between 1970 and 1990 the nation's central cities grew by only 12 million while the suburbs increased in size by 41 million.¹⁴  One of the costs of this shift has been longer commute times with no attendant decrease in congestion. 
 

Suburban sprawl and population growth  have lengthened our daily commutes and  added more traffic to our congested roadways.

In 1975, Americans on average spent 41% of their peak-hour travel time driving under congested conditions.  By 1994, that figure had grown to 68%.  Americans are also driving farther because of our suburban settlement patterns.  In 1975, the average American drove 23 miles in traffic during peak hour.  By 1994 that figure had almost doubled to 45 miles.15

In addition to our settlement patterns, one of our largest implicit demographic policies – immigration – has contributed to declining quality of life for the most disadvantaged Americans.  While the overall economic consequences of immigration are debated, virtually all studies agree on one fact: immigration has resulted in the displacement and wage depression of low-skill, minority workers in the U.S. labor market.  For those living in the central cities, the double-whammy of high rates of immigration and suburban sprawl have been disastrous.

Energy.  Just as President Johnson's administration predicted, as our population has increased in size, so has our demand for energy.  Since 1970, the U.S. population has grown by about 31%¹⁶ while total energy demand has increased by about 36%.¹⁷  For the most part, the United States has met this increased demand through increased domestic production of coal, natural gas, petroleum, nuclear power and, to a much smaller extent, renewable energies.

Starting about 25 years ago, however, domestic production of petroleum began to decline, causing petroleum imports to inch up.  Since 1970, annual imports of crude oil have more than quadrupled and imports now supply more of our annual oil budget than does domestic supply.¹⁸ Declining domestic petroleum production means that we face a less certain energy future regarding a fuel that we depend upon for more than one-third of our annual energy needs.¹⁹

Farmland Loss.  In a recent study of farmland loss, the American Farmland Trust found that urban sprawl in the United States was responsible for the destruction of more than 4 million acres of prime or unique farmland between 1982 and 1992, or about 400,000 acres lost every year.²⁰ When erosion and other factors are considered, total farmland loss is close to one million acres annually.²¹

Urban sprawl consumes the best farmland because most cities were built where prime agricultural resources were abundant. As the boundaries of our urban areas expand, the surrounding farmland is paved over. Consider that Texas lost more high quality farmland to development than any other state between 1982 and 1992, accounting for 11.5% of the total loss in the United States.²²  During this same period, the three largest cities in Texas – Houston, Dallas and San Antonio – grew by 20%, 33% and 22%, respectively, expanding their boundaries.  This rapid rate of growth – two and three times higher than the national growth rate of 10% – explains Texas' massive farmland loss during the period.²³

Biodiversity. Preserving biological diversity is fundamental to maintaining a healthy environment.  Species and ecosystems are interdependent so that the loss of  just one species – depending upon its role in the environment – can generate enormous ecological consequences and environmental impact. 

Unfortunately, rather than preserving biodiversity in the United States, human population growth and activities are threatening it.  The intensification of modern agriculture, degradation of water quality in critical aquatic habitats and contamination of the environment with toxic substances have all played a role, but the primary cause of biodiversity loss in the United States is habitat loss and fragmentation resulting from growth-driven development.²⁴ The U.S. coastal regions, which are particularly biologically rich, have also been particularly vulnerable to development.  Between 1970 and 1994, the population of U.S. coastal counties (excluding the Great Lakes region) grew 50% faster than the population of the nation's interior counties.²⁵

The consequences for U.S. wildlife have been severe.  In 1987, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed 376 species as endangered or threatened while 315 were considered possibly extinct.  Today 1,119 species are listed as endangered or threatened with 500 considered extinct.²⁶ A recent study by the World Conservation Union found that 29% of the nation's 16,000 plant species are at risk of disappearing forever.²⁷

Biodiversity loss in the United States reflects a global trend.  At least one out of every eight known plant species on the planet is currently threatened with extinction,²⁸ and the future looks even worse.  In a poll conducted by New York's American Museum of Natural History, 70% of biologists said they believed a "mass extinction" was underway and that up to 20% of all living species could disappear within the next 30 years due to human activity.²⁹