There really is a scholarship out there for everything. The folks at California Population Awareness are hosting an award contest for students who produce the best material on the state's "unsustainable population problem."

The contest declares "Think about it. More people mean more cars on the road, so more traffic, longer commutes and more air pollution." The awards site is full of the same short-sighted rhetoric, the kind of thinking that has gotten us into a "sustainability" bind in the first place.

California is certainly not sustainable, but it's not due to our population. Most countries/states/cities in the developed world need major changes in their consumption habits and building practices in order to solve pollution and resource woes. CAPA takes a far simpler approach to the problem: instead of eliminating our nasty habits, we should just eliminate… the people.

The CAPA quest comes across as selfish, short-sighted, and completely aimed at the wrong mark.

Compare California with the similarly-sized island nation of Japan. California has a land area of about 155,000 square miles and a population of 37 Million; Japan, with roughly the same land area, maintains a population of 130 Million.

Japan's population is more than 3x that of California, yet for years Japan has actually complained of a declining population.

The Minato-Mirai 21 District of Yokohama, Japan (photo: Patrick Lydon | sociecity)

The major difference between California and Japan — in terms of ability to maintain a certian population — is in the way they build their cities. That is, Japan builds mostly with a focused, smart, efficient density. The natural treasures of Japan are largely sustained and respected due to the concentration of populations in well-planned cities with efficient local, regional, and national mass transportation networks.

California, on the other hand, struggles even to get a bullet train built between their largest metropolitan areas. The local governments of the state to this day, continue building cities as if all the land in the world were available. Suburban housing tracts, mega malls in the middle of parking lots, and strip malls accessible only by car have replaced thousands of orchards and agricultural fields. This "bulldoze, pave, build flat" mentality has become a standard we have accepted.

Arial View of Los Angeles, California (photo: Patrick Lydon | sociecity)

CAPA's problem is that they assume our current way of developing land is inevitably locked down into a pattern of cars and suburbia; either that, or they prefer to live with this method of unsustainable development.

As a result they wish to fix our "population problem" by kicking all of the immigrants out and locking down the borders so very few can enter this state. This isn't a fix at all, but a temporary patch which was made necessary in the first place by poor urban planning.

Dear CAPA, you are short-sighted and so clearly missing the point.

We don't have an over-population problem in California, we have a problem with people who declare that there is a nature-destroying population problem, and then drive to the ultra-eco-mall in their SUV from their suburban homes on spacious grass lots. That, is a problem.

If we want to aim our sights at something less self-serving, addressing the dynamics of the world's population growth would be a good place to start. Or if you are really intent on helping your state maintain its natural resources, why not look at the actions of other countries who have innovated and built their cities smartly?

If California builds all of its cities like Los Angeles, as vast suburban sea of houses, it's no wonder we can't deal with a measly 37 million people.

So, did I enter the CAPA scholarship contest? Of course!

And I sent them the article you just read as my essay.