Can we keep up with the demand?

kshama2001 wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

The statement used to be that you could house the Earth's population in a land mass the size of Texas. Australia just makes for a better example highlighting just how vast the world is and how inefficient our lives are currently. If needed we would adapt very quickly.

Australia ~1,900,800,000 acres

.2 parcels ~9,504,000,000

Have to consider a deal of fudge factor here as you will have variances in dwellings & occupants. Note this does not take into factor z-axis, so high rises, multi-story buildings.

Why are you "fully convinced"? What data are you using to base this on?

I disagree that increasing population can be managed with just building more. Every single *comprehensive* story I've heard about flooding in Japan, Texas, and Louisiana talks about how overbuilding contributed to storm damage.

We're just not building intelligently on our coasts and in or near flood plains, and there's no simple solution to stupidity, corruption, and greed.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/06/tide-high-wading-through-hurricane-harveys-damage-audio/

...We investigated by wading through the damage left by Hurricane Harvey in Houston. It turns out that developers built thousands of homes inside a reservoir – a 50-square- mile area that’s not just flood prone; it’s designed to flood. Many residents didn’t know this because there’s no law requiring anyone to tell them. So after Harvey, they were left with destroyed homes and little recourse.

https://www.npr.org/2017/11/09/563016223/exploring-why-hurricane-harvey-caused-houstons-worst-fooding

...In the apartment he's living in now, he shows me a map of the area from the 1970s. To the west it's prairie and rice fields, the kind of land that soaks up rain. In a current map, it's now paved — houses, shopping malls, roads. That pushes more water into Houston.

Years ago, there was talk of building a third reservoir. "They did not build the third reservoir, which was so badly needed. They built houses," says Hyde. "Houses get tax money and reservoirs don't."

At Harvey's peak, the reservoirs couldn't handle the water. Engineers opened spillways and water shot downstream toward the city through concrete-lined bayous. Runoff from paved roads and neighborhoods ran into the bayous as well.

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/04/572721503/louisiana-says-thousands-should-move-from-vulnerable-coast-but-cant-pay-them

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/21/610945127/levees-make-mississippi-river-floods-worse-but-we-keep-building-them