By your yardstick, the UK should be considered to be positive heaving, yet immigrants currently make up a majority of the population increase. I'm not going to complain - it keeps my house value up :-)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+density+of+e...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+density+of+e...
Now that's of course massaging the numbers. People/area still puts the EU ahead, ~300 vs. ~500 p/mi^2 (got this by putting "mean" in front of the above searches) but the Eastern US is not "through the floor" by comparison. It's roughly equivalent to France.
Now if you lump the whole Western US in there then yeah you drop that number into the basement (Alaska is bigger than Germany+France+Spain) but if I take a big chunk of Africa or Russia and call it part of the EU then I can do the same over there, which is more-or-less the same thing from a geological, hydrological and climatic perspective.
On a regular working man's salary my grandfather could rent a house on a pristine, practically undeveloped beach for a month a summer a short drive from a major east coast city. You are arguing it's a good thing that population growth has made this no longer possible.
A bigger issue for that scenario would be that most people don't get a whole month off in the summer.
This is directly related to the population and labor supply issue.
I call hooey on your claim it's still possible. Quintupling the drive and substituting for nice house right on the beach a condo on a densely developed block is not what I'm talking about. There are barely any beaches that aren't over-developed on the entire east coast, anyway.
No it's not. The American 'working class' never really got a whole month off in the summer. You are idealizing a non-existent past.
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig/2008/03/SWA08_Ch...
And this ignores that one income supported a stay at home wife.
I guess what you really meant was that your mythical working class man could afford a condo in a skyscraper on the beach, since that's what would be within an hour.
Housing is cheap and conveniently located for purpose in, say, Nebraska - and even the poor have easy access to nature. Same applies to the majority of the Canada, Africa, or Asia land masses.
Where there are no jobs (or means of production), there are no people. There are plenty of people conducting business and making livings even in deepest Nebraska, Wyoming, Africa, Canada, or wherever.
You seem to be attaching special importance to the types of jobs and "culture" that massive congregations of people produce, while complaining that the number of people in those locations is too high ;-)
In your grandfather's time - let's assume 50 years ago - living in such a place wouldn't even be comparable to now. Most likely no convenient place to buy groceries, poor communications, poor amenities generally. The value of that land is significantly improved now - not just because of evil moneygrabbing property owners like myself, but because it's significant better to live in remote places thanks to modern technology, so it's under heavier demand.
I could argue that in your grandfather's time, you could have bought land at bargain rates in Orlando or Las Vegas whereas now the prices suck.. but it's not comparing two compatible realities.
Incorrect on all points. We're not talking about a remote place. We're talking about a one hour drive from a major city.
Come off it. A spacious and fairly pristine spot on the beach was once affordable. Such a spot would now be worth millions because of overpopulation. There is no interesting twist to do with technology.
I'll also add the fish and crabs were plentiful, where now they are quite scarce.
One example of this is a place my family has vacationed since I was an infant: Crosslake, MN. Crosslake started as a small, sleepy fishing town with gorgeous views, nice people, lots of fish, and lots of wilderness--basically heaven for a Minnesotan. Because it was heaven, people started moving there in droves and drove the property prices to absolutely absurd levels. It went from a place where your grandfather might own a little fishing cabin, to a place littered with multi-million dollar estates that have $250,000+ boats parked in front of them.
This had nothing to do with technology. Only recently (within the last decade or so) has the town started getting "modern". This didn't prevent people from flocking there.
And don't forget that other technological trend : the camera. Ever since a photo could show the beauty of a natural place, the visitors followed. Arguably it was the photos of Yosemite that sparked the initial nationwide interest in visiting such a place. I could theorise that this same trend has worked it's way through into every beautiful piece of wilderness - many people will visit a place simply because they've seen a picture of it. Some of those visitors will choose to stay as residents.
So my theory is that because of the technology and the demographic trends, people populate areas that were once considered remote, and it was increasing awareness of the beauty of remote places that drove the visits in the first place.