Tag Archives: population

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. People in large groups. Concerts are one of the very few times I’ll concede to intentionally heading out into a crowed place. In just about every other endeavor, I make efforts to avoid finding myself in that situation. As Agent Kay well knew, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.” The sheer density of people in large venues makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I’ll overcome it given enough motivation, but I’ll never manage to be entirely comfortable with it. 

2. Pope Francis. According to a news report I read, “Pope Francis praised Indonesians on Wednesday for their large families and suggested that people in other countries are choosing to have pets rather than bring up children.” That’s fine, but Jesus Christ there are now more than 8 billion people on the planet already. How can someone with such reach and influence honestly believe that the solution to any of the current problems facing the planet is to throw more people into the mix. The world population has grown by one billion people in the last 14 years, and you can see the hash we’ve made of that. Maybe, even with the words of the Holy Father to the contrary, it’s time we look at trying something else, because just throwing more bodies at our problems clearly isn’t getting the job done.

3. Clothes shopping. One of the many “fun” facts about weight loss is that clothes I was wearing at the beginning of this past spring no longer fit. Coats, sweatshirts, sweaters, long sleeve shirts of all varieties – not one in ten winter/cool weather things in my closet come close to fitting properly. I’m attempting to rectify that through online shopping, but my house has mostly become a waypoint for clothing as I shuffle it from a business’s shipping office back to their receiving desk in hopes that a refund may eventually be applied. Nothing fucking fits right, sizes make no sense, and I’m once again sick to death of shopping. I honestly have no idea how anyone has a good time with this process.

Where no one wants to live…

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For a while on Sunday afternoon my Twitter feed was near filled with what I’ll generally call serious lefty climate people. Look, I’m there. Climate change is a real thing. It’s a topic worthy of serious discussion by serious people. I’m not in any way sure that’s what was happening on twitter. The one theme I kept seeing over and over was the call to “reimagine” cities.

That’s fine, I suppose. Cities have been reimagining and rebuilding themselves for as long as there have been cities. I’m sure in 3428 BCE some Sumerian urban planner in Ur was convinced there was a better way to build a ziggurat. 

The trend of growing urban populations increasing while rural populations decline is not in any way a new feature in this country. It’s been happening since nearly the beginning as people left the farm for new job opportunities in the city created during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. There’s no reason to think that trend will stop as we move forward, so our cities should absolutely plan for dealing with larger populations in the future.

What I always struggle with in these discussions is these “thought leaders” on social media never seem to take into account is the number of people who have never, do not currently, or never will have any desire to live in a densely urbanized bicyclist and pedestrian paradise. I just don’t care how many bus routes you have or how wonderful the subway is, trading my patch of land with its flora and fauna for 600 square feet on the 87th floor just sounds awful.

Good luck with it, though. The more people you convince to be warehoused in towers of steel, concrete, and glass, the more green space I’ll have out here “where no one wants to live.” You might want to talk about nature, but I value seeing it from my back porch. We’re not the same.

What I learned this week…

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What I learned this week in a lot of ways is just a confirmation of what I’ve known my entire adult life – and that’s that I have absolutely no interest in ever living in a city. Yes, I’m aware my disinterest in city living means I’m “missing out” on untold cultural opportunities, fine dining, education, and whatever else it is that attracts people to live in America’s dense urban centers. I’ve made my peace with being able to access those opportunities as needed from a distance if I ever really need to avail myself of them.

I’m not built for living in a place that prides itself on ginning up ever increasing population density or warehousing people stacked 20 floors deep with a thousand next door neighbors. I’m not a great outdoorsman, but I can’t fathom living somewhere my only outdoor space is ten feet of concrete sidewalk or the part six blocks away that can be closed at a moment’s notice by executive fiat. When I want access to green space, I like the option of walking across my own yard and being there – already with the forest at my doorstep.

As much as I like “home,” finding myself confined to a few hundred square feet indefinitely is the stuff of nightmares. I despised riding DC’s Metro a lifetime ago when I commuted into the District for work. The idea that it, filled with plague victims with no other options, would be my only reasonable means of transportation, sounds definitively awful. If nothing else, the Great Plague has reinforced my already deep belief in the value of elbow room between me and the next closest neighbor.

Cecil County is just far enough away that it won’t likely be a bedroom community for Baltimore or Philadelphia any time soon… but the growth of housing developments and apartment complexes along the county’s main routes undeniably means that people are finding their own reason to live here. I’ve been here long enough to notice the daily increase in traffic to and from the major outlying areas of employment. It’s already feeling just a little bit too crowded for my tastes.

I’m happy enough where I am for the time being. State land and large lots will do their part to prevent too much crowding. Once I don’t need to make residency decisions based on proximity to an employer, though, the gloves are coming off. If I’ve learned nothing else from watching the news unfold these last few weeks, it’s that I well and truly have no business living or working inside of one of America’s great Petri dishes. I’m sure it’s fine for some people, but it’ll be a hard pass for me.