300 million and counting

Future. Its 1972 report was prescient. It said immigration would impact U.S. population growth significantly by 2000 -- and it has. It warned that unless we made wiser choices about where people lived, population growth's consequences would multiply -- they have. It predicted that 85 percent of Americans would live in urban areas by 2000 -- 79 percent did. But with Vietnam, Watergate, and the presidential campaign, the 1972 report was largely ignored, and today, we still struggle with the same issues. Population growth affects air, water, food, economy, living standards, social services, political rights. Some aspects of growth are positive, such as a larger workforce and consumer market helping us compete with Asia. Some are negative, such as environmental damage, sprawl, resource scarcity and higher risks of conflict.

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