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Originally Posted by babybackribs2314
1,000,000,000 is unreasonable... I'm not qualified to guess, but I'd say that something in between 500,000,000 and 700,000,000 is definitely possible. Roughly doubling our current population would definitely be feasible, with the biggest increases occurring in the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest, where water is plentiful. I'm not sure about how much food we produce but I'd imagine we could easily provide for over a billion people.
Things going for doubling the population include our relatively high birth rates here (overall it's around 2.1, which is replacement rate, but it's increasing), and immigration... I'm guessing there won't be the kind of mass migration of today in 2100 because more countries will be wealthy, but through 2050 we'll probably recieve another hundred million immigrants, at least.
Even with 600,000,000 people, the US still won't be that crowded... unless everyone wants to live in the suburbs, which is probably unlikely.
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Actually studies show that people are gravitating toward desert areas or places with insufficient water needs. Take a look at the Sahara for example. The stress on the land is hastening the pace of desertification as millions apon millions continue to poor into the desert countries Egypt, Algeria, Libya, and Moracco.
As far as the U.S...I believe the NE is the slowest growing area in the country and many of the major cities have a stagnant population...same as in the Midwest. It's clear that the majority of the U.S. population will be centered in the Southeast and the West...Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Cities such as Houston and Atlanta will have over 10 million in the metro by 2050. That's huge!