The Upper Midwest Situation

While some of these projections may look gloomy, remember: we can change the future. We can create a new vision, a new dream for the planet. It is in our power to humanely slow and stop population growth and solve the many problems that growth is creating. See our "What You Can Do" section to learn how to help!

Seen at night from space, the Upper Midwest is home to three major metropolitan areas (Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Chicago, and Detroit) and hundreds of smaller cities. Each of these cities has an ecological footprint much larger than its land area. It is a common misconception that the space between these cities is "empty" because few people live there, but in fact the cities could not survive without many thousands of square miles devoted to farms, forests, and other natural resources.

Minnesota is due to double in just 80 years! Whether the doubling time is 76 or 471 years, this means people will have to double their infrastructure to provide homes, stores, schools, roads, and everything else!

This increase will drive vast amounts of some of the world's richest farmland to be paved over to accommodate the added millions. And this will put ever more pressure on existing farmland (much of which is declining in fertility!) to provide for more and more people.

Meanwhile, the population in rural areas is decreasing as many corporate farming operations attempt to squeeze ever more productivity out of a smaller amount of farmland.