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All Friday Reports are posted at www.vardaman.com/friday.phpVardaman Virtual Forestry CompanyFRIDAY REPORT OF 10/20/06The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy“AMERICA’S POPULATION: NOW WE ARE 300,000,000”Our quotes are from the print edition of THE ECONOMIST on 10/12/06: “On or around October 17th, according to the Census Bureau’s population clock, the number of people in the country will hit 300m, up from 200m in 1967. By as early as 2043, the bureau says, there will be 400m Americans. Such robust growth is unique among rich countries. As America adds 100m people over the next four decades, Japan and the EU are expected to lose almost 15m. “These are only projections, of course. Lifespans will no doubt continue to stretch and immigration rules may change. What is striking, though, is the gulf between the fertility rate in the United States and other rich countries. American women today can expect an average of 2.1 children. That is the number needed to keep a population stable, so observers sometimes take it as a given and say that America’s population growth is entirely due to immigration. This obscures the point: for every big advanced country besides America and Israel, the alternative to ‘replacement rate’ fertility is a baby bust. “The fertility rate in the EU is 1.47 – well below replacement. By 2010, deaths there are expected to start outnumbering births, so from that point immigration will account for more than all its growth. And that average hides countries that have seen an astonishing collapse in the willingness of their citizens to breed. The fertility rate in Italy and Spain is 1.28, which, without immigration, would cause the number of Spaniards and Italians to halve in 42 years… “As countries grow richer and women get educated, they have fewer children and invest more in each one. Whereas peasants in Mali cannot afford not to have kids, many Westerners fret that they cannot afford to have them. University is expensive, and if Mum (or Mom) decides to stay home, the household must forgo the salary she used to earn. Add to this the sudden halt to a life of carefree first-world hedonism, and it is no wonder that birth rates have plummeted in all rich countries… “Polls certainly suggest that Americans are more optimistic than people in most other countries. Philip Morgan, a sociologist at Duke University, and Miles Taylor, a population expert at the University of North Carolina, cite several other possible factors. Birth rates are lower in more patriarchal rich countries, such as Japan and Italy, than in places where the sexes are more equal, such as America and Scandinavia. Perhaps the knowledge that Dad will help with the housework makes women more willing to have children. “America’s wide open spaces also make child-rearing more attractive. Bringing up a large family in a tiny Japanese apartment is a struggle, even if you can fold away your bed during the day. The world’s lowest fertility rates are in super-crowded Hong Kong (0.95), Macau (1.02) and Singapore (1.06). In America the average family-home has doubled in size in the past half-century, from 1,000 square feet (93 square meters) in 1950 to 2,100 square feet in 2001. “America’s coastal areas are fairly densely settled, but families who cannot afford a spacious home with a garden in Connecticut or California can move somewhere cheaper. They often do, one reason why the mean centre of America’s population – ie, the point at which an imaginary, flat United States would balance if only the people on it weighed anything – keeps moving south and west. In 1800 it was still near the eastern seaboard, in Maryland. By 2000 it was in Phelps County, Missouri, and heading for Oklahoma. “HOUSTON, WE HAVE LIFT OFF Can America cope with a relentlessly expanding population? A look at Houston suggests it can. The city is one of America’s fastest-growing. The population of Harris County, which includes Houston, grew by 21% in the 1990s, to 3.4m. The surrounding counties are booming, too. Since Houston has no zoning laws, developers can build wherever they think there will be a demand. Rather than waiting for the city to extend sewers and power lines to outlying areas, they can issue bonds to pay for such services themselves, and pass the cost on to the people who buy the houses they build. “At the Woodlands, a 28,000-acre (11,300 hectares) planned community north of Houston, you can buy a three-bedroom family home on a quiet wooded street for $130,000. By comparison, the median house price in San Francisco is over $700,000. The Woodlands has good schools, 145 miles (235km) of hiking trails, golf courses designed by the three greatest retired golfers in the world, and a cluster of oil and high-tech firms. “It is also safe. ‘Police salaries are paid by the community, not the county, so we have more of them,’ says Roger Galatas, who used to run the Woodlands operating company. The community makes its own rules. Restrictive covenants prevent anyone from uprooting too many trees, or building eyesores. Several houses share each mailbox, so neighbors chat when they pick up the mail…” To read the complete article, click on http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8031359 “U.S. POPClock Projection According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States projected to 10/16/06 at 03:03 GMT (EST+5) is 299,989,542 COMPONENT SETTINGS FOR OCTOBER 2006 One birth every 7 seconds One death every 13 seconds One international migrant (net) every 31 seconds Net gain of one person every 11 seconds To access this projection, click on http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html “TAKING LAND OR JUST BORROWING IT WITH INTEREST?
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