Circle half the population of the world

This photo is not particularly surprising from a data standpoint, but it is visually arresting.

If it didn't have to be a circle the area would be even smaller because a lot of the area inside it is lightly populated area in uninhabitable mountains of China.

If we stop sending medicines and doctors and foreign aid and earthquake relief, how many of those so-called "people" will die off?

If they continue to kill their daughters in "honor killings" how long will it take for them to die out?

Please re-draw the circle but report how many white-skinned, blond haired, blue-eyed English speaking people live with it. (I won't quibble about minor points so you are free to include the left-handed if you really want to.)

Some more ways of looking at population density. I had no idea Paris was so densely populated, yet one more reason to never go there. But it does look like the world can support lots of huge metro-areas with the smart of us living in rural places to support it all.

Quote: AZDuffman

I had no idea Paris was so densely populated, yet one more reason to never go there.

In the summer Paris and Rome stink, literally.
They smell like weird cooking smells and
garlic. Go in the winter.

Quote: AZDuffman

I had no idea Paris was so densely populated, yet one more reason to never go there.

Paris proper is less densely populated than Manhattan, but is not quite twice the area. But people don't go there as much for daily work like they do to Manhattan. Paris has pushed a lot of the office buildings to the suburbs.

Quote: AZDuffman

But it does look like the world can support lots of huge metro-areas with the smart of us living in rural places to support it all.

These calculations are all well and good, but they don't take into account what happens when you scale these cities. Mumbai has a density between Paris and Manhattan, but over 10X the area of Manhattan. You end up with thousands of acres of slums, and the lack of this huge infrastructure like you have in Manhattan to bring them all the luxuries of the world.

Quote: Pacomartin

You end up with thousands of acres of slums,

That's where America got lucky. Old Europe
used to be all slums 1500 years ago. But they
slowly learned how to build cities properly
and they brought the expertise to the New
World. 400 years ago, NYC was already
planned out on paper. We got to skip
the sprawling slums concept where a
lot of the world still lives. We were
really good at building infrastructure.
Sure we had slums, but never on a huge
scale.

We had places like Five Points in NYC,
probably the worst slum we ever had
in the US. Even Dickens was disgusted
by it, and he'd seen London's worst.
But FP didn't start out as a slum, it
degenerated into one. At one time it
was a fine upscale area.



This is a wonderful pic pf the FP area about 1880.
Somebody painstakingly hand colored it
about 100 years ago. The detail is wonderful,
and with the coloring you half expect the
people to start moving if you study it long
enough.

Quote: Pacomartin

These calculations are all well and good, but they don't take into account what happens when you scale these cities. Mumbai has a density between Paris and Manhattan, but over 10X the area of Manhattan. You end up with thousands of acres of slums, and the lack of this huge infrastructure like you have in Manhattan to bring them all the luxuries of the world.

IMHO what will happen is in the dense metro areas, which lets face it will be mostly is Asia, is that they will be forced to keep building "up" and the slums will become tenement buildings. Think Co-Op City on steroids. In the USA the opposite will happen as the Detroit model takes hold. All the inner-ring suburbs and city living will begin to empty and in 50 years we will see many cities having entire blocks of smaller homes flattened and replaced by new, small houses and townhomes of people who want to live more metro.

I live in such a place, all the houses are like 100 years old. Eventually they are too much to fix, so I can see someone buying a few and starting over. If my town goes college-town as they want it to it will be easier to make happen.

Quote: AZDuffman

IMHO what will happen is in the dense metro areas, which lets face it will be mostly is Asia, is that they will be forced to keep building "up" and the slums will become tenement buildings. Think Co-Op City on steroids.

Like Kowloon Walled City.



You don't think the cities will look like this concept?

Quote: Pacomartin

You don't think the cities will look like this concept?

No. Maybe there will be some nice city centers that have the "city of the future" look but they will be reserved for a crony class of the population. Most of the rest will be what has been shown to work, cement-slabbed, nondescript buildings with little character. Give people a small apartment, put in light rail nearby, and try to convince them how good life is. 47% will think they have a good life. They might even have a balcony with a few pots of herbs or small vegetables. All the better to toil in a low-skill, white-collar sweatshop though you don't sweat in the A/C.