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| Blackleaf |
England's population to be 70 million by 2050England's population, despite already being vastly larger than that of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, is to grow much faster than the other three nations for at least the next 50 years - it will grow by a third. That's compared to a growth of a fifth in Northern Ireland and 15% in Wales.Scotland's population, though, will hardly grow at all. England's population 'to grow by a third' in 50 years Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com Tuesday 6th May 2008 
How London's skyline will look in a few years' time. England's population is expected to be almost 70 million by 2056, with London experiencing the fastest growth. England is set to become the most crowded country in Europe as its population grows by a third over the next 50 years, according to official projections. There are currently some 50 million people in England, but by 2056 this could hit 68 million - 1,349 for every square mile. The population density now is around 1,010. In London, the figure could rise from 12,377 to 13,910 over the next two decades. The Tories, who obtained the data from the Office for National Statistics, demanded restrictions on migration levels. Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "This demonstrates the real pressure public services are being put under as a result of Labour's immigration policy." London aside, the biggest population rises will be in the East and South West of England, up 16% by 2029, while the North East is expected to remain static. Scotland's level will remain the same at 171 per square mile; Wales will have 15% more residents by 2056 and Northern Ireland will have a fifth more. www.24dash.com |
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| Cruachan |
Re: England's population to be 70 million by 2050
Are you suggesting this is a good thing?! Yes, steady population growth would be beneficial to Scotland and its economy but rapid growth is neither necessary nor desirable. The creation of wealth is based on ideas, innovation, entrepreneurial skill, long term investment, new technologies, access to new energy solutions, infrastructure projects, and the hard work of ordinary people. Add to that a fair tax regime and you have the right mix for a successful economy and a thriving Scottish society. Meanwhile the South of England continues to grind to a halt under the weight of its own "success". |
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| Pip |
This population growth will largely be from immigration/migration, and is part of a global trend that will doubtless be mirrored in New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Milan, Frankfurt, Paris etc etc and their surrounding/supporting conurbations and settlements.
The real point is not how large and influential this part of England will be, but to what extent it will be meaningfully English. The challenges are for us to create new mechanisms and adapt the existing ones, to serve this awesome new structure. When I go up to London it still feels like the capital of my nation; there are things in London that I recognise and relate to. There still remains, to my eyes anyway, a distinctiveness to it, as there is in Paris and New York. We need to preserve that, and to strengthen the links and roots that our capital has in England as a whole. The only Scottish city that I have any real familiarity with is Edinburgh (not much, I've been there five or six times). Do Scots feel the same way on the whole? |
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| William_Cleland |
I normally wouldn't respond to obvious flame bait but people should bear in mind the phrase, "if current trends continue", when they read stuff like this. What will happen to the balance of payments when the UK moves from being a net energy exporter to a net energy importer over the next few years given we are now in an era of sky high oil prices and what will that do to economic and population growth? Further complicating the picture will be the need to partially phase out the use of coal in order to meet Kyoto requirements at a time when most of the existing nuclear power stations are also scheduled to decommission. Only a massive ramp up of new nuclear power facilities between now and the 2020s (remember the plan is to use French rather than British technology which means wealth will flow across the English Channel) can prevent very serious power supply problems that have the potential to devastate the British economy. Given the huge up front capital expenditure associated with nuclear power, the UK will be doing very well simply to maintain its current standard of living over the next 20 years.
http://www.odac-info.org/node/1692 |
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| Jimbo |
England's population to be 70 million by 2050
In that case Blackleaf, the sooner Scotland regains it's independence the better. We can't subsidise so many people. |
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| Neil |
[/quote] |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
Do they know next weeks's lottery numbers as well?
On a more serious note, have they figured possible poulation decline due to food shortages, the chance of a flu pandemic, or a major economic collapse causing the immigrants to go home into their calculations? Or have they just projected a curve upwards with no consideration of a possible chance in circumstances? |
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| Neil |
It is a straight line projection of curent trends. This is not part of the art of perfect prediction since nobody has managed that yet.
However I submit it is more probable, by many orders of magnitude, than any projection which assumes 10s of millions of young people dying of starvation or flu here in the immediate future & in a way which is selective by ethnicity. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
And I submit that a straight line projection of current trends is a terrible way of predicting the future. Banks did that with house prices and gave us the credit crunch! There are many things that could curb population growth in Britain. For example, immigration is increasing the population, yet if there is a massive economic downturn, which many think is likely, then potential immigrants may not see Britain as such an appealling prospect. Ones already here might even go somewhere else. Food inflation and the cost of living generally is pretty high in this country, and rising. That might stop people having children, or, perhaps more likely, stop people having more. What's the old young/ratio? If the boomer generation dies out by 2050 then that would lower the population as well. And yes, there's always a wild card like bird flu that could come along and change everything. All of this makes a prediction based on nothing changing in the next 40 years fairly meaningless. To quote Albert Bartlett, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." |
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| Neil |
If you know of one which has a more succesful history I would be interested in it. The only thing which fits is projection on a curve which would get us to the same situation more quickly. I think it would require a considerable economic downturn to make us poorer than Kashmir. In any case such a downturn would obviously be likely to stimulate emigration by the native population far more than it would deter 3rd world or even Rumanian immigration. |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
I don't. But that doesn't make this one right.
We don't need to be poorer than Kashmir, just Poland. And emmigration would reduce the population even more. |
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| Neil |
I'm afraid in life we sometimes have to care for the morrow & if you acknowledge this is the best estimate we have then we should think about it rather than merely hoping for famine, disease & poverty to solve our problems. | ||||||
| Lord Pitsligo |
I don't acknowledge this is the best estimate. |
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| Neil |
Then I repeat what is the more succesful method you know of for providing an estimate? |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
And I repeat I don't know one. But I know from other studies that projecting an exponential curve any distance into the future produces a result that becomes less and less accurate as time goes on. But I'm pretty sure there are ways that take other factors into consideration, rather than just assuming nothing will change over the next 40 years. |
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| Neil |
By definition if there is no better method of doing it then it is the best available. If you cannot acknowledge even logical processes there is no possibilty of a meeting of minds. | ||||||
| Lord Pitsligo |
I never said that. I said I didn't know of one. However, I am not familiar with population prediction models, so all I can do is judge how the method used could be applied to other things with which I am familiar. And the method used has been a constant source of bad predictions across many disciplines, especially when used to predict beyond the short term. However, I will concede that I am making the assumption that population growth prediction has gone beyond the level of simply extending exponential curves. |
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| Clatch |
I don't see why the people in power must always have a population increase. It's very irresponsible in my opinion. | ||||||