"Overpopulation. If nobody died, pretty soon it would be standing room only."
"That's one of the standard arguments in favor of death, but it doesn't hold water or whiskey either. We don't have an overpopulation problem, we have a land use problem. We're sprawlin' out all over the place, like hogs in a rose garden, takin' up a thousand times more space than we need. If we were to stress vertical growth instead of horizontal, if we were to build tall apartment complexes instead of acres of one-story tickie-tackies, there'd be more than enough room. If we built tall enough, and we have the technological capability, we could double the world's population and still fit every single one of us into the state of Texas. Comfortably, I might add. The rest of the planet could be given over to agriculture and recreation. And wilderness. We could have elephant herds again. Buffalo on Main Street."
-The reason I like this quote is because it relates to my major in Urban and Regional planning. The only problem in his argument is convincing people to give up their land and single family homes to go and live in large tower blocks, it is not an easy task as Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen now with the slowing of the housing market and the over abundance of loft-condos-high rises etc. that remain vacant.
I wonder what the effect this would have on regional economies, and what events would lead to a building of a "sky-city", similar to depictions of cities in science fiction novels such as Arthur C. Clark's 3001.
