NYC Now Just One Giant Birth Control Pill
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 03. 4.08
With Earth’s population growing exponentially there’s certainly cause for alarm. But a pair of new studies suggests there may be a cure for overpopulation that’s been right under our noses all along; big cities. Of course they don’t lead to the same conclusions about the cause of the damping effect cities have on population growth, but that’s precisely what makes them so interesting to consider. And with the UN expecting that by 2030 the cities will contain roughly 60% of the world’s population, it could be that one of them actually sheds some light on the degree of population growth to come.
The first study, released by Professor Ruth Mace of University College London, deals with the fact that city dwelling parents were, until quite recently, most concerned with their children surviving infancy. With the increase in the quality of both medicine and sanitation, the modern city is an environment where parents shift focus from the mere survival of infancy towards the concern that their children won’t become successful adults.
The result being that parents now invest far more time, energy, and resources into each child in a bid to ensure their later success than in the past. Leading parents to have fewer children and devoting more of their precious resources to each of them.
But the second study, done in Iceland, suggests that birth rates in cities decline not due to the level of resources required for modern child rearing, but because of the greater amount of potential partners available in cities. The Icelandic team based their theory on research showing that closely related couples, like married cousins, have a much larger number of children than couples with a distant relationship. Postulating this as the reason for the recent population decline in Iceland, which recently became a highly urbanized nation after generations had lived in rural areas.
Perhaps some readers would care to sound off on the issue?
via:: Environmental Graffiti
The cost of living is so high in NY no one can afford children.
A plausible, alternate explanation to demographic transition, which had to do with western nation family size going down once the kids were not needed as workers on the farm and once public health measures upped the probability of a child surviving to reproductive age.
As far as the high cost of living in NYC goes, the increased number of people who need to dedicate their lives, essentially, to their jobs in order to be successful enough to sustain that type of lifestyle is usually a large factor in how many people are giving birth to how many children. Education and job success usually leads to less children, right?
Perhaps single life in urban settings is more enjoyable
Women have something else to do in big cities than sit around popping babies out.
Perhaps with all of the entertaining distractions, as well as career, educational, and other opportunities allow them to have meaning in their lives than following biology!
Just... maybe?!
Child-rearing decisions are done on an individual basis, and emotions definitely come into play when making those choices. I doubt few women make the decision not to have kids because they figure the industrial world's changing economic patterns require fewer workers for farm and menial labor.
My assumption would be its a bit of all those things. Higher living expenses requiring longer work hours, less worry about child surviving into adulthood, more worried about individual child's success, a change in culture, and a change is genetics (this part is interesting to me, could be that closely related people are more inclined to have greater number of children genetically because there is a greater risk to having unhealthy children. same essentially as when conditions are harsher for children, parents have more children).
From my own personal experience and observations it is probably the costs. Once upon a time a house cost less than a year's wage, the mother could often stay at home, relatives were available to help, & medical costs were negligible. Now both parents have to work just to service the debt, relatives are also working or far away, and a minor medical operation could cost you your mortgage.
they're all drinking each others pills
regards
It's truly too expensive to have a big family even if you want one for the average child-rearing family in the city. Paying for the space for one is virtually impossible for low and middle income families. And the millions of people reminds us daily that we have a huge population circulating around us and maybe we, deep down, don't want to add to the crowd.
It could be that the larger cities, such as New York, Beijing, Mexico City, Los Angeles, are a crystal ball showing us the future of humanity as we continue to overpopulate and urbanize. Could it be that eventually much of the planet will be as miserable as these places? And death rates will increase not just from poor air quality, but also disease, starvation and thirst? And fertility rates will decline out of compassion for future generations?
(I like Broadway and Hollywood as much as the next guy; just wouldn't want to live there!)
Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
www.growthbusters.com
Maybe the apartments are so tiny in NYC, that after your first kid, you never again have enough privacy to get the next kid launched
People who have several kids end up leaving for the suburbs. Not enough space to stay.
People tend to move out of NYC after the birth of a second or third child, driven by housing and other living expenses. So if the studies are looking at the average size of families actually living in cities like New York, they're missing something.
Well duh! People who live in cities don't need a hoard of little 'uns to help with slopping pigs and such.
When you live in a more densely populated setting, you are more likely to be able to perceive the pressure of population on the earth.
It's horribly depressing, but I met a young man with 7 kids recently and a friend actually said later "it's ok in Canada - we're not over-populated here"! Needless to say, he's from a farm in the country, and has never even seen a metropolis.
Ironically, the clueless friend has recently been raizing wilderness on his family farm for cropland due to increased wheat prices :( He just can't make the connection between those seven new mouths to feed and the environmental cost.
I believe it's a number of things, which simply add up to a changing society. People aren't traditional like they used to be. Many don't want kids... ever. They are more interested in making money, drinking $6 coffee, freaky tattoos that will look horrible in 30 years, and getting drunk and laid often. This behavior was frowned upon in the past, but it's practically normal today. If you have smoked a drug, had sex, or are a master a text messaging by the time you're 16, you're the odd one. Our changing culture and technology has filled the void and taken priority over our lives. I'm one of those rare guys that actually wants a family with a house and yard in the suburbs and the responsibility that goes with it, so I notice the changes and differences easily.
I am still amazed at such ignorance as to think that our beautiful giant planet is overpopulated! WE ARE NOT OVERPOPULATED! What we are is poorly managed.
Each year the US and other industrialized nations throw away tons and tons of food.
We have plenty of fresh water, we just need to take care of it.
Land is not a problem, we have plenty of space.
The problem is that the one resource which is not renewable gets wasted. That resource is TIME.
How much time did you spend this week feeding the poor, clearing a stream, or working on a plan to better utilize the resources we have? How much time did you spend watching TV or going to the club?
Don't get me wrong, I like to watch TV and hang with my friends, also. But before I start telling other families how many children they should or shouldn't have, perhaps I should ask myself: " What if only the really rotten people had kids, and the good people, in an effort to "help", stopped. Who would be running things, then?"
If you help the helpless, and care about your neighbor, and love your enemy instead of hate... Please have children. Lots of them. We need more people like you.
-Jim
I am still amazed at such ignorance as to think that our beautiful giant planet is overpopulated! WE ARE NOT OVERPOPULATED! What we are is poorly managed.
Each year the US and other industrialized nations throw away tons and tons of food.
We have plenty of fresh water, we just need to take care of it.
Land is not a problem, we have plenty of space.
The problem is that the one resource which is not renewable gets wasted. That resource is TIME.
How much time did you spend this week feeding the poor, clearing a stream, or working on a plan to better utilize the resources we have? How much time did you spend watching TV or going to the club?
Don't get me wrong, I like to watch TV and hang with my friends, also. But before I start telling other families how many children they should or shouldn't have, perhaps I should ask myself: " What if only the really rotten people had kids, and the good people, in an effort to "help", stopped. Who would be running things, then?"
If you help the helpless, and care about your neighbor, and love your enemy instead of hate... Please have children. Lots of them. We need more people like you.
-Jim
Unfortunately, it's not NYC. The birth rate has skyrocketed there. Hipster boutiques have been replaced by hipster kiddie boutiques. Prams clog up narrow sidewalks all over town. It's crazy.
http://www.observer.com/2007/epater-le-b-b
I'm personally hoping STD's take care of the over population issue. I think it would be a good policy to secretly lace condoms and KY with an STD that causes sterilization. That way when the dumb/horny high school students do the hanky-panky, future generations don't have to suffer their genetic flaws.
Or, if my last comment was too secretive and scandalous for you, the government could just offer anyone $10,000 to get their tubes tied. That way drug-addicted high schoolers won't have anymore crack babies, and it's not Genocide because they agreed to the procedure.
Is that better? I mean, we would make up the cost of the program in one year through education savings alone. (Then tack on welfare, social security, health care, etc.)
The dumbest people breed the fastest. Education is the key.
I just read an article in Good Magazine that mentioned the fact that 10% of the abortions in the US occur in NY. Maybe that has some sort of effect on this idea?
It seems like more of the religious right are in more rural areas and therefore probably convince more young girls to carry to term.
just a thought.
It might curb population growth, but with the population already as high as it is, and city living being as unsustainable/not environmentally friendly as it is, it's a band-aid for a gaping wound.
Besides, it's the "third world" that's reproducing the most. Surely no one is suggesting that we put them all in big cities ... right?
I AM WITH JIM ON THIS!!
Birth is a truly awesome, naturally endowed, creative ability. By giving birth we are "participating in an event of cosmic proportion" as the fabulous birth film Birth As We Know It states.
The disdain by this supposedly nature loving crowd, shown toward women willingly creating new, innocent and precious life is just heart wrenching, not to mention confusing!
WHERE IS THE LOVE, PEOPLE? ~Liora.
here is Jim's post
"I am still amazed at such ignorance as to think that our beautiful giant planet is overpopulated! WE ARE NOT OVERPOPULATED! What we are is poorly managed.
Each year the US and other industrialized nations throw away tons and tons of food.
We have plenty of fresh water, we just need to take care of it.
Land is not a problem, we have plenty of space.
The problem is that the one resource which is not renewable gets wasted. That resource is TIME.
How much time did you spend this week feeding the poor, clearing a stream, or working on a plan to better utilize the resources we have? How much time did you spend watching TV or going to the club?
Don't get me wrong, I like to watch TV and hang with my friends, also. But before I start telling other families how many children they should or shouldn't have, perhaps I should ask myself: " What if only the really rotten people had kids, and the good people, in an effort to "help", stopped. Who would be running things, then?"
If you help the helpless, and care about your neighbor, and love your enemy instead of hate... Please have children. Lots of them. We need more people like you.
-Jim"