Critical mass: Population density

[ShenLung]

Some time ago, I was reading a small town newspaper, and came across a section labeled: Police blotter. This section detailed all of the police calls that had been made for the entire week .. it amounted to a little less than two pages, and consisted of a lot of bicycle thefts, some shoplifting, minor vandalism, a couple of drunk and disorderly conduct calls, and one or two domestic violence calls. The thought struck me then that a large city could not possibly do this, the blotter would take up the entire paper! The news media in many major cities do not even report on all of the homicides, only the more sensational ones.

 

Now it seems by this observation that there is a corelation between population density and crime, particularly violent crime. Other factors are present, of course: education, economics, morality, and governance, for example. These factors aside, is there a definable point where there are simply too many persons living in too great of proxemity to each other? Could each person be analogous to a small bit of Uranium, emitting their equivelent to neutrons, colliding with others, creating a chain reaction?

 

In a reactor, to decrease the intensity of the chain reaction, fuel rods are withdrawn or shielded from each other ... can that analogy be applied to population density? I did some basic research on land mass and population ... not precise, but enough to provide a general sense of how the world might look, if every person were to be redistributed to be as far away from another as possible. Here is what I found:

 

At 50 million square miles of land mass (really a little over 57, but I rounded it down for the sake of convenience, also accounting for the highest peaks, densest jungles and deepest desert regions) and roughly 7 billion persons, I wound up with an area of 200000 square feet per person, 1/4 of that area being land readily suitable for farming. The nearest neighbor would be over 500 feet away - well out of rock-throwing range. This view does not look like overpopulation to me.

 

There is a capacity for food production where currently 12 million square miles or so are utilized for agriculture, but this capacity can be expanded to support 14 billion persons without much difficulty. Market forces can and will dictate such expansion, and even at double the world's current population, each individual is still "owner" of 100000 square feet of their own space ... this still sounds like a lot.

 

So .. populations can be redistributed, there is plenty of space to do this. Unfortunately, the social planners seem to want greater and greater centralization of populations. How can these plans bring about greater peace? Decentralization appears to be a better plan.

[OnPhourCoughee]

Hmm, there is a lot of open space out here. However most people stay in, at lest some kind of, town due to community and its easier to distribute food and stuff. Well, now that it takes fewer framers and farms are larger and mass produce food like never before. Cites make managing population just ... well hmm...

[GrandmasterP]

Netherlands is pretty crowded but very low crime rates.

[thelerner]

Netherlands is pretty crowded but very low crime rates.

I was thinking along the same lines. I assume density of population has less to do with crime rate then culture conditioning, both nationally and on block by block basis. I assume proverty will always provide tinder for crime though.

[GrandmasterP]

Canada is about as tooled up as the USA is but has far fewer gun crimes per capita.

Singapore is wall to wall people and almost crime free.

I don't reckon the OP theory has legs.

Edited December 16, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Aetherous]

Thinking of well being and being close to nature, or else almost entirely disconnected...

 

Urban areas have light pollution, so you can't see the stars or the beautiful black of night. Totally disorienting. Then there's the lack of open spaces, the lack of forests, the lack of real dirt that you dig in and grow things.

 

I hope to see cities somehow take care of this disconnection from nature. There has got to be a way to get rid of light pollution. Some genius will come up with it, some day. Having more open space where you can look into the distance...I think that can be possible near major cities, somehow. Integrating more living things into the city is also possible, and is already done in some areas.

 

Urban homesteading interests me. The ability to grow organic food on your own plot, while still being connected to the electricity of city life...is great. Apartment builders could make the places a bit more person and nature friendly...

[ShenLung]

I would have pegged Japan to be the example for people being crammed in closely with minimum civil disruption.

Lots of cultural influence, possibly ethnic homogeny, serious self discipline ...

These factors don't really apply to a country like the United States. Try cramming too many Americans together, and it's a recipe for disaster.

[thelerner]

Thinking of well being and being close to nature, or else almost entirely disconnected...

 

Urban areas have light pollution, so you can't see the stars or the beautiful black of night. Totally disorienting. Then there's the lack of open spaces, the lack of forests, the lack of real dirt that you dig in and grow things.

 

I hope to see cities somehow take care of this disconnection from nature. There has got to be a way to get rid of light pollution. Some genius will come up with it, some day. Having more open space where you can look into the distance...I think that can be possible near major cities, somehow. Integrating more living things into the city is also possible, and is already done in some areas.

 

Urban homesteading interests me. The ability to grow organic food on your own plot, while still being connected to the electricity of city life...is great. Apartment builders could make the places a bit more person and nature friendly...

I think this is growing and has been recognized for a long time. Manhattan for example is crazy crowded, but Central Park is amazing, open fields, ponds, sculpture, zoo, musicians etc., I'm sure keeps millions sane. The same can be said of Chicago, not just the large parks by the lake, but city and suburban planners put in parks with at least some wide open spaces in most neighborhoods. I think I've seen more green and trees in the U.S's cities then I've seen in the big capitals of Europe.

Edited December 16, 2012 by thelerner

[GrandmasterP]

We do pretty well for public parks in England for such a small country.

Central Park layout was copied from Birkenhead Park across from Liverpool.

Urban homesteading is a great idea you really don't need too much space to grow lots of veggies given a bit of careful planning.

[ShenLung]

In the urban homesteading category, I've been looking into aquaponic set-ups .. you get fresh veggies and fish out of the same space. If local governments were to invest in larger scale aquaponics centers, the economically disadvantaged persons would have ready access to a high-quality food supply. Operating the facility could be done by the very people who would be getting their food from it: Instead of supplying them with a special credit card and borrowing the money to purchase foodstuffs from a grocery store, people would actually be putting in real work in exchange for the food.

Costs for materials, electricity, ect. could be met by offering fresh produce for sale, either directly at the site, or through the grocery stores about town ... who doesn't like fresh, locally grown organic produce when they can afford it?

[GrandmasterP]

Sounds good.

You can't beat home grown veggies for flavour and sheer satisfaction.

We had our first first early spuds today, grown under glass and lit.

Delicious, always manage a few round Xmas.

Edited December 17, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Birch]

http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Second-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355752166&sr=1-1&keywords=gaias+garden

[GrandmasterP]

I tried permaculture style with some potatoes three seasons back.

What a failure, but it was a bad year all round.

The regular grown ones produced far more than the permacultured ones.

The idea for pc is to trench then plant then backfill and more or less leave them to get on with it without ridging / earthing up and mulch with straw.

The weeds ran riot even through the straw mulch and I'd not do it again.

Works well where there are trees apparently and on very poor soils.

[Birch]

I tried permaculture style with some potatoes three seasons back.

What a failure, but it was a bad year all round.

The regular grown ones produced far more than the permacultured ones.

The idea for pc is to trench then plant then backfill and more or less leave them to get on with it without ridging / earthing up and mulch with straw.

The weeds ran riot even through the straw mulch and I'd not do it again.

Works well where there are trees apparently and on very poor soils.

 

I have the trees and very poor soil thing. Also not very interested in hard work.

Lots of the permaculture ideas are interesting, very systems-oriented.

[GrandmasterP]

Yep, there's one where they put the spuds onto the ground then pile straw on top then a light cover of earth and repeat as spuds grow through.

No dig method.

That might be worth giving a go.

[ShenLung]

Yep, there's one where they put the spuds onto the ground then pile straw on top then a light cover of earth and repeat as spuds grow through.

No dig method.

That might be worth giving a go.

 

In your zone, you might try stacking tires, fill with straw, and then add a tire and more straw as the plant grows. The black rubber keeps the root system warm and promotes growth. Farther south, the built up heat is too intense, and kills the plant ... I'm planning on trying out a fine wirecloth cage on a couple of plants this next season.

[Vmarco]

So .. populations can be redistributed, there is plenty of space to do this. Unfortunately, the social planners seem to want greater and greater centralization of populations. How can these plans bring about greater peace? Decentralization appears to be a better plan.

 

I lived in the overpopulated, under-infrastructured, over-stressed area of Austin, Tx., and found it amazing in that this will be one of the first places to eventually figure out how to live together,...all they need IMO, is another 600k people,...quickly. Not decentralized redistribution.

 

Right now, the planet as a whole, needs about 2 billion more people QUICKLY,...not less people redistributed.

 

Watch this Youtube with as open of a mind as you can,...and you may begin to understand why:

Edited December 17, 2012 by Vmarco

[GrandmasterP]

They grow giant championship long leeks like that the competitive growers.

Amazing things to see.

[ShenLung]

Illustrating the amount of 'space' available for persons to live in is an extreme example, it is more to put the lie to the "oh no, we're overpopulated, we're destroying the planet" belief. I'm really trying to tie a few concepts together here, and hopefully come up with a synthesis.

When the essential needs of a person are readily at hand, and under the direct influence of the person, there should be a relief from those anxieties that permeate (not all, apparently) modern cultures. By decentralizing production, and putting access to the essentials closer to the end user, the individual is not under constant threat to their existence from external sources for something so basic as food and water. Being capable of such self reliance does not make the individual isolated, but liberated in such a manner that they may excercise independent thought.

Remaining interconnected to other independent thinking individuals, free from anxieties over (artificially?) scarce resources, a global society could, perhaps develop synthesis of the right sort of thought by excercise of free choice, rather than dictate.

We are doing this sort of thing right now ... but that freedom of individual thought is not the norm as of yet.