Les Jones

Population > What Happens After Depopulation?

Mark Steyn:

It's hard to accept you have a demographic crisis in China, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands or Britain because by comparison with the US these are very crowded places, and the idea of losing, say, 20% of the population and freeing up a bit of space sounds very appealing. The difficulty is the bit you lose. In Europe (I happen to be in Spain at the moment), it's very weird to go to a Mediterranean wedding with tons of aunts, uncles, gram'pas, gran'mas, but no kids, or to a German suburb built for families and to hear no children playing in the street. Yes, you'll have more space, in the sense that a poor mill town has more space after the mill's closed: the young folks have fled but at least ol' Bud and Earl won't have to wait for stools at the lunch counter, assuming it hasn't gone out of business.