Supersizing Atlanta

Painting by Lucy Brady, used with permission.


Well, the news is out...a report by the Atlanta Regional Commission states that metro Atlanta is adding 2 million more people in the next 25 years. The worse news is that even if proposed transportation improvements are made, the traffic is STILL going to get worse. Now, the roads are already packed around here, so face it, the American dream is going to become a nightmare. We will just waste our lives away sitting in our cars, as emissions spew from our tailpipe. And as we sit in a sea of cars, we'll scream, "What a great nation we live in!"

Of course, most people don't even read the newspaper, so they don't even know about all these growth projections, nor do they think about it. After all, we humans are designed to adapt, right? And besides, it's God's will anyway — it's just another sign of the end times. While some just accept the problem, others blame it on immigration or the "damn yankees" that are "invading" north Georgia.

At a sprawl presentation I attended a week ago, the speaker said that OVER 60 acres a day in metro Atlanta are cleared for development. That means more strip shopping centers with nail shops, more roads, more "Big Box" stores that are surrounded by massive parking lots. If we scalp the land and develop the entire U.S., won't that effect weather patterns? Is it really right to smash every forest and pave every pasture in Chatlanta (the new name of our area when Chattanooga and Atlanta run into one another)? Is this moral? Is it righteous?

Now immigration is a complicated issue that I won't address tonight, but I will say that our country's own policies are exacerbating the endemic poverty in Latin America, which is forcing people to move here. But overall, immigration is only a side effect of a far greater problem.

The PROBLEM?

The problem is that every time a couple has more than two children, they are growing the population. Right now, world population is skyrocketing and will soon hit 6.5 billion (it was only 3 billion in 1960).

The typical response to traffic is "build more roads" and the typical response to overpopulation is "there's plenty of room."

Okay, let me address these:

Roads - Build them, and people only move farther out. Roads are only a cheap subsidy for developers. They open up more land for the bulldozers. As long as the growth remains out of control, the roads will just fill up again.

Plenty of Room - Shouldn't there be a balance between nature and humans? Is it our destiny to pave over every last inch of the Earth to build another convenience store or gas station? And while there may be enough space for everyone to have a plot of land, there is certainly not enough resources for unlimited people. Already, steel and gas prices are up, partly because of China's booming economy. The price of seafood is already increasing as the world's fisheries continue to become more depleted.

I remember giving a presentation once on how all the world's oceans are already below replacement level, except the Indian Ocean. Well, now I read that giant fishing ships, often from Taiwan, are now fishing out the Indian Ocean — the last great area that has not been over-exploited by humans.

While family size is a sensitive issue, all I ask is that everyone in the world should consider "stopping at two." In that way, at least we'd have a fighting chance at protecting our natural world and ourselves. Do we really need another 6 billion people on the Planet? What goal does that accomplish?

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

"Rush-hour drive times will continue to lengthen, as will gridlock regionwide. For example, an afternoon trip from Marietta to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is projected to grow from a 48-minute ride to a 70-minute odyssey."