Quote Originally Posted by 313WX View Post
Neither is no population growth.

Just look at Japan as an example of why. The problem you have is that with too few new people, you have an increasingly aging population who can no longer contribute the tax revenue necessary to support the infrastructure in place.
This is not a good example.

First, Japan is experiencing the beginning of population collapse, not stagnation.

That is a completely different matter.

Further, one can have no population growth at all [[not no births) and have a population with demographic [[age) stability.

Where one does not see that it is because a previous generation had a baby boom and therefore a return to replacement birth rates results [[as with the Baby Boomers) is an older bulge in the population.

Population stability is in fact an essential thing over time; growth in this category is not advantageous unto itself.

Yes, you will grow real estate values, but you will then see smaller housing and/or higher rates of homelessness or public subsidies of housing.......in other words, population growth isn't free.

Yes there's more money, but there's also greater expense.

Further, bulges in population cause extreme cost problems.

In the context of the baby boom it means vast resources on new/expanded schools, many of which are now being closed and demolished.

Society paid first for their construction, then again for their removal.

That shows as economic growth both times by the way; but stupid growth rather than smart.

All you need out of aggregate population numbers is stability.

In the case of Michigan, and particularly Detroit, because of past population loss, there is some surplus land and infrastructure to absorb some net population growth at low cost.

But that is a one-time thing and anomalous. Once any surplus capacity in 1/2 empty schools or parks is used and any abandoned housing re-occupied, the benefits of further growth at the State level are marginal at best.

There is some benefit to urbanizing/shifting population, up to a point, but not simply more people for their own sake.