Saturday, April 10, 2010

How about a one state country. . .ready for density?

Talk about density and urban planning!


Since I'm not sure everyone can read the text, here's what it says from left to right across the page after this header line:

There are about 300,000,000 of us in the USA, spread out over 3,794,101 sq miles. . .

But let's say we all wanted to live in 1 sate together, comfortably.

Using the density of Brooklyn, NY as an example: at about 35,000 people to a square mile. . .

What state wold we all fit into?

In other words if we wanted to we could all move into and live in an area the size of New Hampshire; the 5th smallest US state (8,968 sq miles) with extra room for more parks. (because Brooklyn cold use more)

And if the area were square, it would be about 100 miles wide. You could ride a bike to the other side for the "country" in a day. Our "green belt" would be the rest of the USA. Not only would we all have access to mass transit and live in spaces with small footprints, the need for Air travel would be greatly reduced. You'd only fly when leaving the country. WE'D ALL BE NEIGHBORS.

What do you think? Any urban planners out there?

3 comments:

brian said...

I can't imagine anything worse. Some people like the wide open spaces.

Unknown said...

I hope no one is seriously considering such an idea. Interesting speculation, provided it only stays in the hypothetical.

Unknown said...

I think it would definitely have some benefits! After spending two years in China and seeing high population density and its pros (and cons), we moved to Chicago's northside to try living without a car. So far it's been great but it has been inconvenient some.

But it's hard to imagine Americans without cars and wide open spaces.