Growing Pains By Froma Harrop, Providence Journal-Bulletin June 9, 2002

Thirty years ago, the nation's leaders worried that America might add another 50 million people to its population by 2000. The Rockefeller Commission warned that the nation must stabilize its population, then 205 million, or suffer a deteriorating quality of life.

As things turned out, the nation's population rose by 76 million. And with a few exceptions, today's political leaders don't seem worried at all.

For three decades, Washington has ignored the recommendations contained in the commission's landmark 1970 report, "Population Growth and the American Future." And Americans are paying the price in physical, psychological and political ways. They are losing their heritage­both natural (countryside paved over) and man-made (historic structures razed for bigger developments). They are fuming in traffic. They are surrendering political clout.

In 1969, President Nixon told Congress that although the nation could feed a booming population, "social supplies-the capacity to educate youth, to provide privacy and living space, to maintain the processes of open, democratic government-may be grievously strained."

Nixon got that right. The population explosion (no exaggeration here), is making Americans crazy and destroying a comfortable way of life they once took for granted. Here are a few examples plucked from the news:

• In the Pacific Northwest, population pressures continue feeding a building boom. Thus, real-estate developers sued to change the rule that protected the habitat of 19 groups of threatened fish. The Bush administration has agreed to these revisions, which would ease building restrictions in Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho.
  
• In the Northeast corridor, sprawling suburbs have turned commuter trains into sardine cans, where even standing room is hard to find. One train running between New York and Philadelphia has a car set aside for a private commuting club. It offers nothing more than the promise of a seat. The annual fee is $1,200 a year above the ticket price, and there are no openings for new members.
  
• In Texas, runaway population growth has created water shortages so severe that oilman T. Boone Pickens wants to pump water out of rural areas and sell it to the cities. Farming interests, in arid West Texas fear they'll be tapped dry. The population of Texas, meanwhile, is expected to double in 50 years.
  
• A Public Agenda poll found that half the adults surveyed blamed overcrowding for much of the rise in rude behavior.

In 1982, the average driver spent an extra 11 hours a year stuck in rush-hour traffic, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. By 1999, those delays more than tripled to 36 hours a year.

Population growth dilutes our democracy. In 1929, the number of seats in the House of Representatives was fixed at 435. As a result, each member of the House represented 30,000 constituents. We still have 435 House districts but there are 600,000 constituents in each. Small wonder so many Americans feel alienated from the political process.

At the time of the commission report, the birthrate among American women had already fallen to the replacement rate. Since then, nearly all the population growth has come from increased immigration. Washington doesn't care. Actually, both Republicans and Democrats are trying to weaken what feeble immigration laws we already have-mainly to curry favor with growing ethnic groups and supply chap labor to employers.

The report recommended that immigration levels not be increased and possibly reduced. It also called for strenuous and well-enforced new laws to curtail illegal immigration. In 1970, about 400,000 immigrants legally entered the United States.

Nowadays, from 00,000 and 900,000 legal immigrants enter the country every year. The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that an additional 420,000 alines enter illegally. The INS says it doesn't have enough computers to even go after immigrants who commit serious crimes, much less people who are merely here without documents.

The Mortgage Bankers Association estimates that immigrants now in the U.S. could create the demand for at least 4 million more new homes in the next decade or two. We're talking here about new major-league sprawl.

The U.S. population will grow to 400 million people by 2050,according to the Census Bureau's medium projection. That's the equivalent of adding more than three Californias! An American with 400 million people will be a very different place.

Carried by permission from Froma Harrop

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