Letter Re: List of Countries by Real Population Density

James,

I have been playing with the numbers based on the population figures and wanted to give you this update.

I did a study of the total land under cultivation in 2002 (rather than just the potentially arable land, and not including grazing land).  42 of the 50 states exceed the figure of 245 people per square kilometer.

[JWR Adds: States with less than 600 people per square kilometer of active-worked farm land might pull through a societal collapse, with plenty of sweat and by God’s grace. But anyone who is planning to survive whilst living in a state with a higher population density is probably in trouble. You must prepare to be very well-armed and deeply provisioned in order to hunker down in total isolation through two winters, sheltering through a major population die-off. Dr. Hugh’s table (below) clearly illustrates the over-population of the eastern states and California that I’ve warned about for many years. ]

Yes, the preceding is based on land in current farm production and the cited “245 people per square kilometer” is a worst case average. As was pointed out in some of the follow-up letters, if you have an area with higher yields per acre, such as rice producing regions, this figure can increase, but it should give us an idea of how bad the dislocations are going to be once the naturally produced fertilizer hits the solar powered air mover.

Important Note: I took out grazing lands, CRP lands, etc. and only had square kilometers of land under actual cultivation.  This is based on a USDA estimate since exact figures are not kept except on a county by county level.  This is why the “final” number is square kilometers is much less than it would appear to be on the surface. 

I know that here in Colorado for example a piece of land I am looking at — 160 acres — only has 10 acres under active cultivation.  The rest of the section is either open range grazing land or CRP land.

I then applied some math [on demographics] to the chart…

[JWR Notes: Some detail deleted, for brevity]

I ruled out the original colonies and adjacent areas.  (Those have the figures shaded light red.) I ruled out the states west of the Mississippi River but with population densities that are far too high for sustainable agriculture. (Those are shaded dark red.)

I evaluated the states west of the Mississippi that are adjacent to “basket case” states with high population densities, and shaded them yellow.

This leaves us with a list of  only 11 states (shaded in green) that would make a good retreat/relocation area, so long as you choose wisely within the state itself.

[JWR Adds: For example, Dr. Hugh rates Wyoming high on his list, but if limit your criteria to only areas that are in the milder climate zone west of the Great Divide, then that leaves only parts of the western third of Wyoming. Similarly, he rates Montana highly, but if limit your criteria to only areas upwind of nuclear targets and that are in the milder climate zone west of the Great Divide, then that leaves only northwest corner of Montana. He also discounts Oregon and Washington, but the eastern halves of both of those states are very lightly populated.]

The new [short] list is then:

Since I currently live in Colorado I plan to relocate sooner than later outside of the state if I can not find a suitable location within the state.  – Dr. Hugh