Not that anyone cares, but I don't <i>want</i> to live that way. I certainly understand how many love the urban life, I just prefer suburbia, thanks.<p>That being said, a more relevant question is what the societal effects would be. My first question is how this would affect crime rates. A quick search seems to indicate that crime rate may go up with population density, though other factors are, of course, more highly correlated (such as poverty).<p>Some of those other factors also correlate highly with high density areas. No clue what the causative links are ... could be that density has no effect, or even reduces crime rate, I suppose - I'm way to lazy to research it for ta quick hn comment!<p>I do know that being too close to too many other people makes <i>me</i> think about perpetrating violent crime, though! ;)
I live in a dense part of NJ, around 7000 inh/mi2. But I've got a single family home with a nice yard, and many of my neighbors have even more space than I do. We've got lots of trees and open spaces too. At this density we'd need 5 New Hampshires, but that's still not much and it would provide a much higher quality of life than packing in at 35000 inh/mi2.
I'm sure this is doable. Better still would be to create a few population centers of this density but slightly smaller. say 9 of them, 33x33. This would allow for redundancy of civilization (in case of disaster and whatnot). It also would allow better access to the appropriate resources (which is frequently a major motivator in which cities are successful). It still reduces the number of transport corridors, so trains an such become viable.<p>The problem comes for people like me: I enjoy my small city experience. I live a short walk from downtown, but have a house w/ yard (and a big garden), and a garage/workshop (mostly workshop as I don't actually have a car). Such space uses are unrealistic as density goes up.
I don't <i>want</i> to live in Brooklyn, though.<p>This ignores that a <i>larger</i> area with similar population density would require much more robust transportation systems than currently exists in, oh, <i>the world</i>. Have a happy mental visualization:<p>Take every car in America on the road right now. Divide by, say, 100, assuming that most are driving ~ 1 hour, and the new density would make their trips within 6 minutes after such a change, and the transport system fits 10 people into the space of <i>one</i> car.<p>Now, cram them into New Hampshire. And imagine rush-hour traffic.
As a current resident of NYC looking to move away, I think this proposal would have a negative impact on the mental health and well-being of many US citizens.
For comparison, if Canada had a similar population density to England, you would fit its entire population onto the island of Newfoundland (not the province of Newfoundland and Labrador). Interestingly, Newfoundland was intended to be an independent country. This would leave the whole mainland of Canada (the worlds 2nd largest country) devoid of habitation.
Imagine trying to drive a truck load of food/supplies to the center of it. Driving a big rig (or would it be too small for the demand?) through 50 miles of Brooklyn sounds incredibly tedious.
This would be ruinous. Yes, it'd be great if we could compact and leave most of America pristine, but that's not what would happen. Leave all that open space and people will expand into it again, except likely as much more dense populations.<p>This would result in mind bogglingly large population growth, which Earth can't take right now. We need LESS dense populous, not more.