UK capacity

[Thom]

Transplanting this question, from the Farage thread, as it is rather lost in there;

 

One question I always ask of those who are "pro-immigration" is this;

 

"What do you think the capacity of the UK to absorb immigration is?"

 

Currently it is at 64 million people. Could the UK hold 70 million? 80 million? 100 million?

 

What sacrifices should we make in order for immigration to rise? Loose our green fields? Cities with population densities as great as Tokyo's 4600 per square mile (London currently has 3,900/sq mi).

 

Build housing all over the Lake District, erect concrete apartments on Snowdonia, build ghettos on Dartmoor, fill the Brecon Beacons with shanty towns?

 

For the UK population to rise to 70 million, that would mean building the equivalent another 7 cities the size of Birmingham.

 

How many people could/should the UK admit?

Edited March 21, 2015 by Thom

[Suzukiscottie]

Transplanting this question, from the Farage thread, as it is rather lost in there;

 

One question I always ask of those who are "pro-immigration" is this;

 

"What do you think the capacity of the UK to absorb immigration is?"

 

Currently it is at 64 million people. Could the UK hold 70 million? 80 million? 100 million?

 

What sacrifices should we make in order for immigration to rise? Loose our green fields? Cities with population densities as great as Tokyo's 4600 per square mile (London currently has 3,900/sq mi).

 

Build housing all over the Lake District, erect concrete apartments on Snowdonia, build ghettos on Dartmoor, fill the Brecon Beacons with shanty towns?

 

For the UK population to rise to 70 million, that would mean building the equivalent another 7 cities the size of Birmingham.

 

How many people could/should the UK admit?

 

Why the negative connotations about housing types?

 

I moved to another country and I don't live in a ghetto or a shanty town.

[Parley]

India has 1.2 Billion, so you have plenty of room.

[Thom]

Why the negative connotations about housing types?

 

I moved to another country and I don't live in a ghetto or a shanty town.

 

I was raising my concerns. If the sort of unbridled immigration the UK saw under Labour were to continue, I could see the already crowded UK having to resort to drastic actions.

[Thom]

India has 1.2 Billion, so you have plenty of room.

 

India has a land mass of 3,287,590 km², the UK 243,610 km². Would you wish the population density of India on the UK?

[Slean Wolfhead]

Transplanting this question, from the Farage thread, as it is rather lost in there;

One question I always ask of those who are "pro-immigration" is this;

 

"What do you think the capacity of the UK to absorb immigration is?"

 

Currently it is at 64 million people. Could the UK hold 70 million? 80 million? 100 million?

 

What sacrifices should we make in order for immigration to rise? Loose our green fields? Cities with population densities as great as Tokyo's 4600 per square mile (London currently has 3,900/sq mi).

 

Build housing all over the Lake District, erect concrete apartments on Snowdonia, build ghettos on Dartmoor, fill the Brecon Beacons with shanty towns?

 

For the UK population to rise to 70 million, that would mean building the equivalent another 7 cities the size of Birmingham.

 

How many people could/should the UK admit?

 

I remember working on a report for Birmingham about 20 years ago when they were looking at feasibility to change the Rotunda into apartments. The official population living in the City Centre was something astoundingly tiny like 600....nobody lived there.

Shops were using the ground floors of the old buildings on New Street, a few had offices above, but there were 10's of thousands of square feet lying empty or being used to store cardboard boxes and the like. Potentially hundreds of millions of pounds lying dormant, in the form of taxes and rates.

Hence the policy change on shops and eateries opening at night, and the mad conversion to get people living in the City.

Many cities in the world grew like this, but the UK always preferred to live in suburbs and shut the regional cities at night.

 

We also have the remnants of the feudal system in place where posh people live in the expensive countryside, a lot of which is still privately owned and restricted to public use or development, and poorer people live in the suburbs created for them. In many places the countryside is cheap to live in and farm (Germany for instance), whereas the UK has ended up in the utterly stupid situation where farmland is so ludicrously expensive it's better for a farmer to claim an EU subsidy rather than bother growing food.

These are the sorts of fundamental problems the UK faces in the 21st Century, it's policies are completely out of touch with the way the world is progressing elsewhere, not really an immigration problem as such. Immigration will just carry on happening, it's whether the UK can ever gear itself to accept this and improve life quality.

 

There's no need to concrete over national parks in the UK, just build Cities up to 70 stories which is common in accelerating dense cities, and build down about 8 levels under the ground. Private developers will be up for that like a shot, but the UK problem is that we have no money to keep up with the supporting infrastructure required outside London and Governments have become poor and weakened to the point of ignorance. Trains are a mess, roads are underfunded, buses can't get through the traffic, we push cheap car sales but don't keep up with roadbuilding for them to run on etc..

You can't just dump people in poorly provisioned areas unless you want more ghettos, the country has to be able to support them. I reckon they could double the population, but they won't be capable of doing it.

[Parley]

What do you think is reasonable Thom ?

[Thom]

If I'm being honest, I think 70 m is tops, before the countryside starts being encroached in a way that would ruin the beauty of the landscape I love.

[Thom]

I reckon they could double the population, but they won't be capable of doing it.

 

The idea of working and living in a UK with 120 million people fills me with horror. Where would the power and water infrastructure come from?

 

If the majority of that expansion was people from other countries, what would be the effect on UK culture?

Edited March 22, 2015 by Thom

[Slean Wolfhead]

The idea of working and living in a UK with 120 million people fills me with horror. Where would the power and water infrastructure come from?

 

If the majority of that expansion was people from other countries, what would be the effect on UK culture?

 

We're horrendously inefficient on both, look at the mess with power stations and the threats of power cuts because we've been incapable of sorting it out, now looking to the French EDF to come and save us, or resorting to burning stuff to make power.

We have plenty of water in the UK, but the network is like a leaky bucket and none of the privatisations have worked for the purpose they were intended, they still pump **** into the sea and give the money to shareholders.

 

What is UK culture these days? It's unrecognisable from 25 years ago, but native people didn't change with it. The country they feel entitled to isn't the country that exists now, let alone in the future.

It seems to me that many of the immigrants are improving the culture and they're better educated than the natives.....we need their skills to support the rest of country.

Our workers are less efficient than the Italians and the French already, which is startling.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Slean Wolfhead

[Parley]

Obviously every country's population will keep growing.

In 100 years time It will probably be around 90 or 100 Million in the UK.

[Thom]

Do you think measures should be taken to manage the controllable factors of that growth?

[Thom]

We're horrendously inefficient on both, look at the mess with power stations and the threats of power cuts because we've been incapable of sorting it out, now looking to the French EDF to come and save us, or resorting to burning stuff to make power.

 

Agreed.

 

 

We have plenty of water in the UK, but the network is like a leaky bucket and none of the privatisations have worked for the purpose they were intended, they still pump **** into the sea and give the money to shareholders.

 

Agreed.

 

 

What is UK culture these days? It's unrecognisable from 25 years ago, but native people didn't change with it.

 

I believe our culture of tolerance and respect is still intact. I think we still hold some of our cultural festivals (obby oss, barrel burning, cheese rolling, and the like,) intact.

 

The country they feel entitled to isn't the country that exists now, let alone in the future.

 

Who are these people?

 

 

It seems to me that many of the immigrants are improving the culture and they're better educated than the natives.....we need their skills to support the rest of country.

 

I think you paint with too broad a brush, I'd say; "some of the immigrants are improving the culture and some of them are better educated than some of the natives.....we need some of their skills to support the rest of country"

 

 

Our workers are less efficient than the Italians and the French already, which is startling.

 

Too broad a brush again, and a tadge racist.

 

But lets not wonder too far from the OP intent, UK capacity

[Suzukiscottie]

I was raising my concerns. If the sort of unbridled immigration the UK saw under Labour were to continue, I could see the already crowded UK having to resort to drastic actions.

 

There is no "crowded UK" where I come from. Although I accept that others obviously experience a different UK to the one I know.

 

Perhaps a way of attempting to control migration from non-EU countries to already "crowded" areas in favour of more "less crowded" areas (regional visas like Australia has)? Perhaps though, it's just not possible under current regime of free travel across most of Europe.

 

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/latest-immigration-statistics

[flag of convenience]

Obviously every country's population will keep growing.

In 100 years time It will probably be around 90 or 100 Million in the UK.

 

Nothing is obvious at all. Populations are in decline in certain nations. Germany and Japan for instance.

[Thom]

Ok, so if these "regional visas" were introduced, would that be fair? Say, for instance, Fort William if that were to be the place where immigrants were to be mandated to live and work. Would that not change the essential nature of the area, and the population? I've spent many a happy climbing holiday in the area, and the thought of it becoming another Birmingham doesn't exactly fill me with joy.

[flag of convenience]

It is not so much the area but how people are placed. The choices they have. While many areas of UK are certainly over populated, with the right infrastructure and housing many more could be accommodated. If that is a desirable thing is another argument but it can be done.

 

Problem being of course the changes needed probably won't be forthcoming and large segments of the population must live with the results.

 

Even Australia's main cities are struggling with infrastructure as population here surges in part to avoid recession and a housing downturn. Even though the world outlook would tend to be Australia has the room for many millions more.

[Scrutineer]

As I say in the Farage thread, the optimum population is 30 million, which was reached in approx. 1890. However, no reason this can't get much bigger so long as infrastructure can be paid for. Obviously in the UK there are limits because it's so small, but look at Australia - much of the north has the same climate Indonesia where 250 million people. The north of Australia could support 50 million or even 100 million easily - but there is no money for the infrastructure, it has to be developed in phases.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Scrutineer

[Thom]

As I say in the Farage thread, the optimum population is 30 million, which was reached in approx. 1890.

 

When should we start the cull?

[Suzukiscottie]

Ok, so if these "regional visas" were introduced, would that be fair? Say, for instance, Fort William if that were to be the place where immigrants were to be mandated to live and work. Would that not change the essential nature of the area, and the population? I've spent many a happy climbing holiday in the area, and the thought of it becoming another Birmingham doesn't exactly fill me with joy.

 

Immigration policy isn't really concerned with keeping tourists happy. :-)

 

If millions of EU nationals turned up in Ft William tomorrow to live and work, there's not a lot you can do about it.

 

You can control migration to the UK from non EU countries though. Fair or not is more a matter for the applicants and especially the politicians, cos there will be votes to gain/risk by such policies.

[Parley]

Funny how people from Eastern Europe can settle freely in the UK but an Aussie can't.

[flag of convenience]

Ok, so if these "regional visas" were introduced, would that be fair? Say, for instance, Fort William if that were to be the place where immigrants were to be mandated to live and work. Would that not change the essential nature of the area, and the population? I've spent many a happy climbing holiday in the area, and the thought of it becoming another Birmingham doesn't exactly fill me with joy.

 

Do regional visa's work? How many remain in designated areas once time lapses? In Australia's case the vast majority of migrants end up in Sydney and Melbourne. Would UK be any different?

Going back some decades the method of dispersal was attempted on Vietnamese Boat People in UK. Within a few years most had drifted to main centres of London and Birmingham. Isolation results from dispersal of such groups that [prefer to cluster, at least in earlier years.

[Suzukiscottie]

Funny how people from Eastern Europe can settle freely in the UK but an Aussie can't.

 

Alternatively; funny how people from UK can settle in Eastern Europe but an Aussie can't.

 

Nothing to stop Australia and the EU coming to some sort of agreement. If they both wanted to.

[Thom]

Immigration policy isn't really concerned with keeping tourists happy. :-)

 

But it should be about keeping ME happy! ;-)

 

If millions of EU nationals turned up in Ft William tomorrow to live and work, there's not a lot you can do about it.

 

But that's not what were are talking about. You raised the valid issue of regional visas, so it would be a controlled and managed increase and placement of foreign nationals in Fort William. Do you think that is a wise thing? Is there no intrinsic value in FW as is?

 

 

You can control migration to the UK from non EU countries though. Fair or not is more a matter for the applicants and especially the politicians, cos there will be votes to gain/risk by such policies.

 

You can. It is entirely possible, once out of the dreadful EU, to control inward migration in to the UK.

[flag of convenience]

Funny how people from Eastern Europe can settle freely in the UK but an Aussie can't.

 

Not funny at all. Brit's can no longer settle more or less at will in OZ as was once the case if without criminal convictions. We cannot take ourselves off to Canada or USA when the mood takes us. Even white apartheid South Africa had rules on what whites they would accept.