tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick) (09/21/86)
Here is an excerpt from a discussion of the situation in India taken from another group. I think it gives a good example of what to expect from overpopulation. (Have you ever been to a land without trees, because they were all cut down for firewood? To a land without clean water or air?) * The state of India's environment * The second citizens' report 1984-85 * Center for science and environment- New Delhi * *Habitat: * * - India's urban population is today the fourth largest in the *world. by the end of the century, it will be the largest. managing such a *large urban population will call for extraordinary imagination and *political will. * * - As towns grow, they gobble up precious agricultural land: some *1.5 million hectares already since 1950 and probably another 0.8 million *hectares in the next 20 years. * * - Conservative official estimates, put the existing slum population *at over 30 million and growing. By current trends, 75 percent of Bombay's *population will be living in slums at the turn of the century. * * - Unable to find imaginative solutions, authorities in Bombay and *Delhi have armed themselves with laws.: squatting is today a criminal *offence in these cities and squatters can be arrested without a warrant *and held without bail. * * If India wants to house its entire urban population, it must accept *cities of shacks, not those built to please a foreign visitor. People *must be allowed to improve their housing wherever they are. * * - Though the Central government officially accepts slum upgrading *as the answer to the country's gigantic housing crisis, it is not able to *fulfil its minimal targets. In 1985, there will still be 20 million people *outside the orbit of slum upgrading schemes. * * - For the success of slum upgrading programmes, the key issue is *security of tenure. The best slum upgrading effort is in Hyderabad, where *security of tenure has been assured. * * - The face of urban India is rapidly changing. Bangalore, Pune *and Dehra Dun, for long praised as idyllic--cool, green and quiet, are today *boom towns--noisy, dusty and hot. * * - Hill stations are dying everywhere: Ooty in the south, Mahabaleshwar *-Panchgani in the west, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Shillong, Mussoorie and Simla *in the north. With tourists pouring in, forests have been destroyed and water *crisis are common. * * - As people get pushed out of villages and into cities with little *industry, they bring their rural occupations with them. Allahabad's *livestock population has been growing faster than its human population. *The city's municipal authorities make no pretence of even trying to cope.