Britain is overcrowded

[hellobello]

The roads are jammed, the trains are full, the hospitals are collapsing under the weight of ill people, we want to build all over the place, there's barely enough water in the SE, our drains are on the verge of overflowing. We still insist on cramming in more people and breeding like rabbits. In this country, you get more benefits if you have more children. The world is full enough, isn't?

[DizzyBint]

what paper are you reading love?

[Chandra]

If it was not this early on the day, I would be getting some popcorn.

BEsides, the population group that is growing faster is the aged, you need some new people to pay taxes to cover their pensions.

[charlieq]

who is breeding like rabbits though?
I thought we were not breeding enough and were only on 1.6 children per family or something.

[charlieq]

yes Chandra it's the baby boomers who are the biggest problem. Our dear parents generation.

They're why we're all downwardly mobile because they have nabbed all the property already.

Apparently they moan the most about climate change while creating the biggest carbon footprints too.

[Hulababy]

Is population growth that high in the UK? I thought birth rates were lower, although people are living longer as well - but even so.

[Chandra]

Hellobello, all the world is overcrowded, the only way we could have remained harmless to the environment would have been if we had stayed hanging around on trees and eating each other fleas.

[Chandra]

Sorry that was for Charlie

[Hulababy]

Population growth

This chart would suggest that the UK is fine re population growth.

However having read the OP again I suspect that this person is more concerned about benefits than the effects of population growth. I may be wrong, but the comment "In this country, you get more benefits if you have more children" seems to stand out in the OP - and is not entirely linked to the rest of the arguement. Is the OP suggesting that people are "breeding like rabbits" to get their benefits increased?

[KathyMCMLXXII]

Most of these problems aren't really about numbers of people though - there are more single-person households putting strain on property, more cars per family, people living longer (which is surely a good thing?), people throwing away more stuff as they consume more, etc etc.

Also we're not breeding like rabbits - surely the reason the tabloids like running features on people with 15 children or whatever is because it's actually very unusual now, unlike 100 years ago.

[nearlythree]

Dh and I have bred three little rabbits. Three little tax payers of the future.

The two biggest housing problems are caused by the older generation buying large houses and not moving on, and the single person household.

[Hulababy]

The UK birth rate has actually fallen greatly over the past decades. there was a rise in 2005, but only by 1% and it is still much lower than it was in the 1960s. It has actually remained fairly static since the 1970s.

However, the number of aged persons in the UK is rising. It reached a record high in 2005, mainly due to the baby boomer generation. The avwrage age of the UK citizens has risen from 34.1 years in 1971 to 38.8 in 2005. This is likely to increase into the rest of this century.

The UK does have a growing population . However, this is not due to sharp rises in births, but because we now have an aging population with people surviving long and longer into their retirements.

"In every year since 1901, with the exception of 1976, there have been more births than deaths in the UK and the population has grown due to natural change. Until the mid-1990s, this natural increase was the main driver of population growth. Since the late 1990s, although there has still been natural increase, net international migration into the UK from abroad has been an increasingly important factor in population change."

[hippmummy]

hellobello - why have you posted this in 'In the news'?
Where's the article to back up what you are saying, as most people seem to think you've got your wires crossed somewhere..

BTW:
Lack of water in SE is a rainfall issue, not population surely?
Drains - isn't this down to years of poor maintenance of infrastructure by water companies?

[charlieq]

Fio is the Midlands really worse than London??? what areas are you comparing??

[charlieq]

I found that at least when I lived in Brum, I could GET OUT- now in SE London (tarmac and brick city) am stuck for 10-15 congested miles in every direction, no chance of a trip to the countryside at the weekend for a disorganised slob like me.

[charlieq]

I need to get out and get on a train to Kent. But I remember (well it was the 80s), from Kings Norton in Brum we used to be out & within half an hour in lovely Worcestershire.

People also had big gardens for their kids - people like teachers, secretaries, key workers. But maybe it was like that in London too in the 80s (though can't imagine it...)

[Hulababy]

More stats:

Britain is a relatively densely populated country: it is more than twice as densely populated as France (106 people per sq.km), nine times as densely populated as the USA (27 people per sq.km) and 100 times as densely populated as Australia (2 people per sq.km).

According to a BBC Report in September 2005, immigration made up more than half of Britain's population growth from 1991 to 2001.

Britain ranks 18th in the world in terms of population size.

The population is very unequally distributed over the four parts of the UK: England more or less constantly makes up 84% of the total population, Wales around 5%, Scotland roughly 8.5 %, and Northern Ireland (since 1921) less than 3%.

Nearly 84 per cent of the total population of the United Kingdom lives in England. The most densely populated areas of England are the major cities and metropolitan areas of London and the South East, South and West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside, the West Midlands, and the conurbations on the rivers Tyne,Wear and Tees. London has the highest population density with 4,700 people per square kilometre, and the South West the lowest (210 people per square kilometre).

London had a far higher population density than any of the English regions, with 4,700 people living in each square kilometre on average.

[TLV]

I would be interested in seeing the article hellobello was reading or were you just having a rant in general. I too read somewhere that the birth rate had fallen...at least you don't live in china hellobello as I believe it is extremely overcrowded there and then you would have something to complain about

[hellobello]

I'm sorry if I've asked in the wrong place... There has been an article in the New Scientist fairly recently about over population and even a few politicians are starting to mutter about it. There are not enough resourses to go round.

There are also benefits to be had from an ageing population. Fewer adults commit crime and most have had some sort of education for a start.

We are relying on an old economic model that could be changed to improve things for an older population.

It's only a suggestion!!

[hellobello]

This is the New Scientist article{http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19125711.100-population-earth-enough-already.html}

[nearlythree]

I agree that we ar erunning out of resources, but I don't see what benefits have to do with it. And how would you suggest controlling the number of children that people have?

[seb1]

Here is the link article