The next 100 million and the face of America

The impact of the aging baby-boom generation, whose oldest members turn 60 this year, will be felt on Social Security and Medicare. "We really are doing very well in terms of extending life, and that is going to increase the rate of population growth," says Samuel Preston, a University of Pennsylvania demographer. It could also have political impact.

As the US moves toward 400 million people, Americans can be expected to marry later in life, and more of them will live alone. Between 1970 and 2005, the median age of first marriage moved from 23 to 27 for men and from 21 to 26 for women. Over the same period, the percentage of single-person households grew from 17 percent to 26 percent. Those trends are likely to continue.

Experts generally believe that expansion to meet the housing and other community needs of a growing population is likely to remain concentrated in suburbs and exurbs.

"Most projections show that the continued increase in the US population and the projected 50 percent increase in space devoted to the built environment by 2030 will largely take place in the sprawling cities of the South and West, areas dominated by low-density, automobile-dependent development of residential, commercial, and industrial space," writes demographic trend-watcher Joel Kotkin in a recent issue of the magazine The Next American City.

This kind of continuing development tied to US population growth worries many environmentalists, as well as those concerned about the loss of farmland.

Annual US population growth of nearly 3 million contributes to the water shortages that are a serious concern in the West and many areas in the East, says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute. Water tables are now falling throughout most of the Great Plains and in the Southwest, he warns. Some lakes are disappearing and rivers are running dry.

"As water supplies tighten, the competition between farmers and cities intensifies," says Mr. Brown. "Scarcely a day goes by in the western United States without another farmer or an entire irrigation district selling their water rights to cities like Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, or San Diego."

Concern about a growing populace and decreasing resources is likely to push governments toward conservation and more sustainable development, experts say.

This may be especially true of energy. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia now have renewable portfolio standards that require electric utilities to use more wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and other renewable sources.

"The global context will really drive what happens in the United States," says futurist Hazel Henderson.

Last month, for example, the Chinese government released its first "green" gross domestic product (GDP) report. It measures economic growth while also factoring in the environmental consequences of that growth. Other governments and financial intuitions now are being pushed in the same direction. US portfolio managers in charge of $30 trillion in assets now demand carbon disclosures of all the companies in their portfolios, says Ms. Henderson.

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