In 1971, 890,000 people visited Zion National Park. In 2017 it was 4.5 million visitors. Zion has seen a 5-fold increase in visitation for a park that remains 146,500 acres. That is 30.7 people per acre.
The result has been daily traffic jams, parking lots becoming completely full by 8 am, campgrounds reservations completely booked months in advance, and having to wait for shuttle buses for hours to get from the visitor center to take you deeper into the canyon. Air pollution has worsened when thousands of cars sit idle in lines. Garbage cans full to the brim with trash. Bathrooms reek and overflow. Water quality in the river declines.
Sure, there are parts of the park that remain mostly empty, save for the intrepid backcountry camper going to Lava Point or deep into Kolob Canyons. There is even an area on the southeastern edge of the park closed off to visitation completely as a “scientific study area”. But, in the areas where people can get to, where amenities exist, the park is FULL! They are now discussing have a lottery system even to allow entry into the park. It will no longer open to all American citizens.
Zion National Park is symptomatic in many ways of the direction of the country. In 1970, the U.S. census counted 203 million people. Today, the US Census estimate is 328 million. With a birth rate of only 1.76 children per woman in 2017, and well below replacement since 1972, how can the population have increased in population by 62%?
The answer is simple, immigration. The U.S. allows approximately 1 million legal immigrants per year to enter the country. The approximately 44.5 million legal immigrants currently in the country have had about 17.1 million U.S.-born children. This is not counting the 10-13 million illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born citizen children.
This is not a post about the immoral practices of our current administration, the difficult issues of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, or religious prejudice. This is not a post about the undeniable positive aspects of immigration including innovation, job creation, and labor in fields that American-born citizens often will not do for the pay we as a society offer.
This is a post about the other aspects of immigration. This is a post about quality of life for Americans, about environmental degradation, about whether we as a society have a right to determine how crowded our cities will become, how bad traffic will get, how difficult it is to find affordable housing, how polluted our air is, or how degraded our wild areas will become.
The fact is, more people results in all of those things. Is an ever increasing population sustainable? Is it desirable? What happens when your city doubles in population in the next 30 years? If you think traffic is bad now!
I saw my home city of 200,000 in the 1980’s double in population and all of the farmland on the edge of town turn into almost endless suburban sprawl. I saw forests cut down, fields built on, wetlands filled in, air quality decline, and the daily commute lengthen.
So, is there a way to have a rational and acceptable opinion on the left about limiting immigration in a way that does not get yourself labeled as racist, bigoted, or a Trump-lover?
Some have pointed out that America is not among the most densely populated countries on Earth. We have lots of “empty space”, especially in the Rocky Mountains, the great plains, the deserts, and Alaska. But, I don’t think we’ll be arranging immigrant camps in Nevada by offering each arrival 40 acres of land an a mule. They will be coming to the cities. Can your city handle it?