public discourse on population growth and quality of life

[Valerie Brachya]

Dear SCORAI

A new NGO here is promoting public discourse on restraining population growth, maintaining that a small country cannot cope with such pressures on space and public services without a loss of quality of life. When their views were presented by a very well known journalist in the leading national newspaper, Haaretz/The Marker, I decided to respond. The following is the original version I wrote in English; the response was published in Haaretz in Hebrew this morning. I should just explain that the Haredi community is the ultra-orthodox community who see children as joy even though they are unable to support them and depend on welfare. I  would be delighted to hear views of SCORAI!

In an article by Meirav Arlozorov in The Marker on 6.2.19, population growth is identified as the reason future generations will not be able to live a good quality of life in Israel. Family size has actually decreased in many sections of society, as it has around the world, so it points an accusing finger at the Haredi community, who constitute the large and mostly poor families.

That is running away from the real issue.

 

We keep running away from the real issue – so does all the developed world.

The real issue is that we cannot continue to supply increasing mass consumption at higher and higher levels of material growth for an increasing population and at the same time ensure equality and inclusion and live within 'safe planetary boundaries', to reduce the risks of climate change, the loss of biodiversity and of resource availability. It is a question of who is consuming the space and resources, not who has the most children.

 

The business sector and governments called for 'greening' - technologies which it was hoped would provide the answers to enable everyone to continue purchasing material goods and use increasing amounts of energy. They call it 'green growth', which justifies the continuation of current lifestyles, backed up by PR on 'clean' production and 'recycling' and advertise their achievements in reports on environmental and social responsibility.

 

But we cannot continue current lifestyles. We want to live well but we have to live differently. High density urban living is not the problem. It is the solution. What we need is to provide the necessary infrastructures which will enable all of us easy and affordable access to private spaces, public spaces and services, work spaces, leisure spaces – and a very high level of fast, convenient and comfortable mobility for all between them. Private spaces will get smaller. Many activities will be in joint or shared spaces and use shared services. It is already happening in some cities, including Tel Aviv. Some facilities will have to disappear, such as private car ownership and parking, which are a ridiculous waste of scarce space in cities. Some activities can go underground, which do not require or benefit from access to air and light. Anything at street level will be devoted to activities which provide pleasure, connectivity, community and social inclusion in a vibrant street atmosphere. We can all live well at high densities if the infrastructures and our lifestyles are built and operated to support and promote sustainable urban lifestyles.

 

Don't blame the high birth rate. The Haredim are actually big users of public transport and are not the private car owners who are causing the traffic jams. Those problems are generated by the 2 car households living at relatively low sprawling densities with not such big families. Shoham for example.

 

If you are claiming there is not enough space in this country, then perhaps we should look again at how we use space, and question some 'holy cows'. A huge amount of space is occupied by defense facilities, especially along the southern coast and in the Negev. Polluting activities are still using public spaces as their buffers for preventing proximity of residential areas to toxic, disturbing or high risk processes. You may even want to reconsider whether exporting space (and water) through agricultural production is justified, though there are valid reasons why we still want to cultivate the land and enable people to make an income from it.

The Israeli government should indeed reconsider what is subsidizes and its priorities for investment in public infrastructures and services. Meanwhile it is getting income from and paying subsidies to cars when other countries and cities are moving to providing free public transport to cope with road congestion.

Best wishes

Valerie Brachya

Senior Research Associate

Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research

 

[Russell England]

Valerie,

I believe it is a matter of both consumption of resources and having more children, regardless of their relative rate of consumption.  It is debatable as to whether we can all live well at higher densities.  I would argue that living at higher density with less freedom of movement is akin to asking that living standards be lowered in order to accommodate more bodies - how far should this trend go? 

The question of space is less important than ecological footprint.  It is clear that the earth could not support the current population if everyone lived at even half the standard of living of the most well to do.  Yet many people and most governments seem to believe that population growth is a good thing.

Governments tend to promote population growth without much consideration of the impact on resources.  Population growth helps fuel "economic" growth, which is difficult to challenge due to firmly entrenched paradigms.  Nations need a better way of measuring economic success than the current system that deems an economy healthy as long as the gross domestic product is increasing.  I believe that economic growth is unsustainable over the long term because it depends on depletion of finite resources, population growth, land use conversion and increasing debt - none of which is sustainable.  Measuring economic success in gross terms says nothing about the net costs or benefits to either the economy or ecosystems.  

Please consider reading my book: Gross Deceptive Product: An Ecological Perspective on the Economy. 

Book website is:  http://covenantbooks.com/books/?book=gross-deceptive-product

Thanks,

Russell England

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