I do not believe I have read a more willfully ignorant post recently than Noah Smith’s post at Bloomberg View, “Demographic Decline Is the Real Threat to the U.S.”. The U. S. has no demographic decline to threaten it. Japan has demographic decline. China has demographic decline. Germany has demographic decline. The U. S. does not.
I have attached links to population pyramids for the countries in question above and you will note that those for Japan, China, and Germany all have something in common: they get skinnier at the bottom. That’s demographic decline.
The United States does have a problem which is the hollowing out of the countryside, completely unrelated to demographic decline. That problem will not be solved by moving immigrants there. The map at the top of the page tells the whole story. Immigrants are moving to where the jobs are not where the land is. I’d be willing to bet that if you moved an immigrant family to Elbing, Kansas (pop. 226) within a 100 hours they would have left for somewhere else. There’s nothing for them to do there.
Now if your concern is about the depopulation of the countryside, something that has been noted for decades, I’d be happy to talk about it. One thing you’ll note about where the population is moving from and to is that state capitols and the counties that surround them along with Washington, DC and its environs are all growing while most other counties are shrinking. Immigration won’t solve that. Solving that will require changes in how tax dollars are spent.
Now if he were to have said that there isn’t enough housing in Seattle, Santa Clara, San Francisco, New York, and Alexandria to accommodate all of the people who would like to move there, then he’d be talking. That wasn’t caused by demographic decline. It was caused by NIMBYism. Policy decisions.
But is it a problem?
In Wymore, Ne. you can get a very nice three bedroom ranch with finished basement for around $30,000. But, there’s nothing to do there, they say. True if you mean jobs, not true if you mean hunting and fishing and neighbors and lots of extra retirement dollars to spend.
People have always converged, and it seems to benefit them economically. Look at Hong Kong.
When I look at it that way, I wonder if I might be all wrong about immigration. Maybe we are stealing the wealth of Central America, their youth.
You’ve brought up a number of significant points in that comment, GS.
That’s what I meant.
I’ve commented on that in the past. Accepting the large number of immigrants we have from Mexico has actually destabilized Mexico. I don’t doubt it will be the same in the countries of Central America.
As it turns out that isn’t true. When I was in school they used to teach that during the Industrial Revolution the cities grew because people moved from the country into the cities. However, more recent research has suggested that wasn’t actually the case. What actually happened was that city people could afford to have more children and more of their children survived.
And Mr. Smith is the one saying it’s a problem not me. Without depopulation creating a problem he has no post.
There’s more to immigration. Take a single, 22 year old illegal from the south. Absolutely, the first thing he wants is a job. When he gets paid, he mostly wants entertainment. Beer, the company of women, then, I don;’t have to tell you, Dave, the woman wants. Then he needs a home to satisfy her. He works harder, remittances become fewer and further between. He becomes like us, in the pursuit of happiness.
I’m changing, I worry less and see more good in the drive of their youth.
“However, more recent research has suggested that wasn’t actually the case. What actually happened was that city people could afford to have more children and more of their children survived.”
I’d like to know more about that. People have always followed the available work, then and now. After all, its even what the illegals are doing right now.
To me, the rural to urban movement theory never seemed accurate. Initially, it would de-populate the rural areas, but then, the rural areas would need to continue producing children that could not be supported.