Monday, October 16, 2006
300 MILLION REASONS FOR SAD
The Washington Post anticipates 300-million misery:
When the U.S. population surpassed 200 million on a census clock in 1967, cheers rang through the lobby of the Commerce Department, and applause interrupted President Lyndon B. Johnson’s celebratory speech.
Four decades later, however, 300 million seems to be greeted more with hand-wringing ambivalence than chest-thumping pride.
"When we hit 100 million, it was a celebration of America’s might in the world,” said Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at the University of Southern California. “When we hit 200 million, we were solidifying our position. But at 300 million, we are beginning to be crushed under the weight of our own quality-of-life degradation."
Degradation? A professor of urban planning and demography at the University of Southern California in 2006 is possibly—just possibly, mind—doing better than someone in a similar role one hundred years ago, when (so far as I understand American history) professors of urban planning and demography were required to sweep horse manure by night. More from the WaPo:
How will the momentous 300-million marker be celebrated in Washington?
"Those plans, believe it or not, are still being finalized,” said Robert B. Bernstein, a Census Bureau spokesman. “I don’t yet know what, if anything, we are going to do in the way of an event."
Well, we here will be posting pictures. Massive thanks to all who’ve so far sent wonderful images of their crushed-under-the-weight-of-degradation offspring and relatives; they’ll be presented at 9.30pm Australian eastern time.