chrisp65 Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 this talk of being over crowded is a myth and I really don't understand why people fall for it the road around London is quite busy? ok there are several solutions here, we can stop immigration and limit the number of babies the poor have and put tolls on the roads, that'll fix it. Alternatively, we could build additional roads or push business out to other cities. Let's get radical, we could build new towns. But of course, building new towns would require legions of navvies, of banksmen, of brickies, of plumbers, plasterers, lorry drivers, architects, engineers, electricians. It would mean building new shops, train stations, hospitals and power stations. That's the last thing we need. Better we stop the Bulgarians taking our jobs at Starbucks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhatAboutTheFinish Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 Do we really have people on here suggesting that the island of Great Britain can sustain an infinite population? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 Do we really have people on here suggesting that the island of Great Britain can sustain an infinite population? No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhatAboutTheFinish Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 Do we really have people on here suggesting that the island of Great Britain can sustain an infinite population? No. Great, so we can all agree that there is a limit. The only thing we need to discuss is what that limit should be, how it should be enforced and who is best placed to enforce it...right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 Do we really have people on here suggesting that the island of Great Britain can sustain an infinite population? No. Great, so we can all agree that there is a limit. The only thing we need to discuss is what that limit should be, how it should be enforced and who is best placed to enforce it...right? No. It is obvious that the UK (and the planet) can't sustain an infinite population. To jump from there to saying that we must set strict limits on the number of people allowed in to the country and police them tightly is a strange mental leap. It's like saying if you stepped on the surface of the sun you would be burnt up, so therefore better not light a candle, because that's the slippery slope. Let's be honest about this. The immigration debate is not one about sustainability. If people were actually concerned about sustainability, there's a great many things which should have them far more concerned before turning to the number of people in the country. It's about whether they are comfortable with certain types of people being allowed in. It seems that Russian mafiosi are ok, Romanian strawberry-pickers aren't. New York bankers are welcome, Bangladeshi chefs aren't. It's not about numbers, and it's not about whether they bring needed skills. It's about power, about class, about race, and about prejudice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 What utter cobblers, of course it's about numbers. It's about schools, doctors and the rest of the infrastructure needed to support a hugely increasing population. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 Didn't the population grow by 3.7m or 7% in a decade?. Anyway to Peters point. Yes the big cities are less densely populated than years ago, but then people were living in back to back tenement buildings, where there was no space for anyone to move or kids to play. Disease spread very quickly in this environment. What has happened since is that people have moved further from the City centre to the outskirts. The west midlands conurbation for example didn't really exist. Walsall, Wolverhampton Coventry etc were separate units. Today they are pretty much all one. Same happened in all the big Cities. So the population density may have dropped the whole has increased and the urban size has too. This has seriously affected price of land. Furthermore it has affected the facilities in the City. Take the hospitals for example, they cannot just build new wings on open land, cos there ain't any. They have to extend within, taking away parking spaces for example.Try visiting most hospitals at visiting time, you have to be early to get a place, its like parking at a football match. As for the land, well vast areas are fenced off for grouse shooting, but these are mainly moors, where nothing grows. It cant be used for farming. Do you honestly think that anyone with land that could be used for farming which makes far more profit, would just use it for hunting for a few months a year. But the big point though is water. We just don't have enough. Every year we have hosepipe bans. They do this because we are low on water, very low. Most of the water we have is in the wrong place for the Cites, Birminghams comes nearly 100 miles. Some people just assume we can have some sort of water M1 running through the country picking up from all over. This is not possible due to the geology of the land and the different minerals in the lakes and rivers, Mixing the wrong types becomes toxic. So a 7% growth in population for the next 50 years would give us a population close to 80m. I reckon at that there would be a permanent hose pipe ban and you would probably only be able to flush your bog twice a day. Density doesn't have to mean slums. Take the centre of Edinburgh as one example. Some of the highest quality, most desirable housing in the UK, at among the highest density. The problem with the back-to-backs wasn't the density, but the fact that they were thrown up with no concern for exactly the things you mention - public health, space to move and so on. It was a case of warehousing people at least cost and most profit, and pass on the subsequent health and social costs for someone else to worry about. The urban sprawl you describe is a nightmare - mile after mile of dreary suburbs, based on the idea of an endless supply of oil for all those car journeys which such a mad design requires. Again, a consequence of the triumph of the developers over sensible town planning. Both George Monbiot and the Tory Reform Group agree that we should have higher densities instead of this drab and depressing sprawl. I think they're right. In the case of hospitals, the requirement for parking comes from the urban sprawl which means that a lot of people can't easily travel to a hospital without a car. It's not because they've had to expand because of growing population and therefore take away what would otherwise have been adequate parking, if I've understood your line of argument correctly. Many hospitals have closed, for various reasons. Medical advances have reduced length of stay and therefore required capacity. Community based care means that people are often diverted from hospital altogether. And changes in thinking mean that cottage hospitals are out, regional centres of excellence are in - and this requires people on average to travel further. All these factors are bigger than just population numbers. Water is a good point. It seems our habits and our urban designs both assume limitless supplies of water, and both need to change. Part of the answer is the point Chrisp65 makes about encouraging more balanced regional development. For all of human history until about the last 50 years, settlement was dictated by the availability of resources. We seem to have a mindset now that all requirements can be made available anywhere. Build a new estate out of town, and it's someone's job to make sure there's adequate water and sewerage. Plan housing on the assumption that fresh water is for flushing toilets, that ground which would have soaked up rain can be concreted over for cars. As we're increasingly seeing, it doesn't work. Those problems need to be addressed whether the population increases or decreases, though if it increases, there's an added urgency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 What utter cobblers, of course it's about numbers. It's about schools, doctors and the rest of the infrastructure needed to support a hugely increasing population. Hey, you're an accountant. Try this numbers-based fun game. Take away the demand on the health service caused by immigrants. Then take away the capacity created by immigrants working in the health service. Better, or worse? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 (edited) It's about schools, doctors and the rest of the infrastructure needed to support a hugely increasing population. Indeed. When we look at the forecast changes in over 65 and over 85 population in the next couple of decades it would appear quite clear that the debate ought to focus on the necessary increases in immigration to be able to cope with this demographic change rather than the nonsense of saying that 'we're are full'. p.s. Of course, we may just get to the other side (and be sorted out by what might be a current baby boom) without it being too awful for older generations but that may not happen before inter-generational relations have broken down quite drastically. p.p.s. Most of any debate becomes rather pointless if we really do find ourselves in a situation where western economies have pretty much hit the buffers (investment, growth and so on). If we're there then there's going to need to be a considerable change in our attitude to redistribution to prevent us from getting in to a situation where really stark choices need to be made. As above, though, I'm not even sure that a return to somewhere approaching trend growth will see us avoiding that situation. Edited May 6, 2013 by snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 Do we really have people on here suggesting that the island of Great Britain can sustain an infinite population? No. Great, so we can all agree that there is a limit. The only thing we need to discuss is what that limit should be, how it should be enforced and who is best placed to enforce it...right? No. It is obvious that the UK (and the planet) can't sustain an infinite population. To jump from there to saying that we must set strict limits on the number of people allowed in to the country and police them tightly is a strange mental leap. It's like saying if you stepped on the surface of the sun you would be burnt up, so therefore better not light a candle, because that's the slippery slope. Let's be honest about this. The immigration debate is not one about sustainability. If people were actually concerned about sustainability, there's a great many things which should have them far more concerned before turning to the number of people in the country. It's about whether they are comfortable with certain types of people being allowed in. It seems that Russian mafiosi are ok, Romanian strawberry-pickers aren't. New York bankers are welcome, Bangladeshi chefs aren't. It's not about numbers, and it's not about whether they bring needed skills. It's about power, about class, about race, and about prejudice. No no no that is making out everyone who is worried is racist or xenophobic that is totally wrong. People are worried about getting a hospital bed when they are really sick, feeding their kids because they can't get a job, getting a property to live in because there's no council houses. We can't handle the amount of people we have right now. Despite the cuts the wefare budget keeps going up.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 What utter cobblers, of course it's about numbers. It's about schools, doctors and the rest of the infrastructure needed to support a hugely increasing population. well done, it's about numbers now, do we limit population growth, or do we build more schools and surgeries and employ more teachers and nurses jeesh, that's a tricky one, I guess the best thing to do is to put the breaks on and all sit at home watching the Darling Buds of May and remembering a better time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 Do we really have people on here suggesting that the island of Great Britain can sustain an infinite population? No, where have you seen this suggestion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel1Avfc Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 (edited) If you want to be bombed by islam extremists then vote labour Edited May 6, 2013 by Daniel1Avfc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted May 6, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted May 6, 2013 If you want to be bombed by islam extremist then vote labour Oooh I love this game! If you want to be bombed by an Irish republican, vote Tory! ...wheres that face palm pic? We might need a few. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 If you want to be bombed by islam extremists then vote labour has this thread just come full circle to it's original porpoise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 It's about schools, doctors and the rest of the infrastructure needed to support a hugely increasing population. Indeed. When we look at the forecast changes in over 65 and over 85 population in the next couple of decades it would appear quite clear that the debate ought to focus on the necessary increases in immigration to be able to cope with this demographic change rather than the nonsense of saying that 'we're are full'. We already have enough people out of work to cope with the increase in pensioners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhatAboutTheFinish Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 I can't help but smile at how the subject of immigration suddenly makes socialists start decrying government interference in social planning issues and resorting to arguments of free market supply and demand to make their point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 We already have enough people out of work to cope with the increase in pensioners.Do we?Or do we have enough people out of work (or underemployed) to suit our economic system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 We already have enough people out of work to cope with the increase in pensioners. Do we? Or do we have enough people out of work (or underemployed) to suit our economic system? Don't know, isn't it counter productive to be paying out more in Jobseekers and working tax credits or universal benefits or whatever it is now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted May 6, 2013 Share Posted May 6, 2013 We already have enough people out of work to cope with the increase in pensioners. Do we? Or do we have enough people out of work (or underemployed) to suit our economic system? Don't know, isn't it counter productive to be paying out more in Jobseekers and working tax credits or universal benefits or whatever it is now. Counter productive for us, yes. Not for the tax dodging multinationals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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