Five Events That Will Change America By 2050

2050 is barreling towards us like a freight train and while at one point that specific year felt like a far-off future year where cars would be hovering around us and people would be traveling through space we're now close enough that we can start making some pretty realistic predictions of what the United States specifically will look like here are five geographic events that will change the US by 2050. [Music] hello and welcome to this extra special edition of geography by Jeff now in each of my episodes I end up doing a lot of research and in that research I'm noticing specific Trends where I'm now able to look a little bit into the future none of what you're going to watch in this video is a guarantee but the trends are there so in this episode I'm going to extrapolate those Trends out to 2050 and see how they might change the us as a whole and don't worry it's not all negative there's some good stuff on the horizon too but as usual be sure to check out my podcast geography as everything much of the research for this video is also derived from the research I do for the podcast so if you're a fan of me angiography in general check it out new episodes Premiere every Wednesday and you can listen right here on YouTube sub stack or whatever app you use to listen to podcasts [Music] foreign [Music] decades there will be a lot more people living in the United States based on population predictions from the U.S census it's estimated that there will be anywhere between 400 and 440 million Americans by 2050. that's an incredible increase in a relatively short period of time today there are just about 332 million Americans this means that the population will increase anywhere from about 17 percent at the low end to 25 percent at the high end and because of his shrinking birth rate the increase in Americans will primarily be due to Americans living longer and migration from other countries this means two things the first is that the average age of Americans is expected to increase by 2050 it's expected that over 20 percent of all Americans will be over the age of 65. the second is that many of these newer Americans will be far more diverse than the current population with most migration expected to continue from places such as Asia Africa and Central America the US will become a country without any majority race but this kind of growth and migration won't be felt equally across all state States some states will grow much faster by 2050 it's expected that California will still be the most populous state with over 49 million people but Texas will be closing in on it with over 45 million people that would be followed by Florida with over 32 million and New York with just over 21 million Georgia North Carolina Pennsylvania Ohio and Illinois are expected to round out the top 10 states by 2050 but not all states will grow Pennsylvania Illinois Michigan Connecticut Vermont and others are expected to shrink in population that is unless something Global pushes people to move north [Music] over the last 10 years we've begun to feel the initial effects of the climate changing summers are hotter forests burn faster and for longer periods of time Glaciers are melting and the oceans are steadily Rising all of these events and more are combining to create livability issues in many regions of the country and in particular the southern part of the country will face the brunt of these changes before the north will while no place is fully immune from the impacts of climate change it's expected that states such as California Arizona New Mexico Texas and other Southwest states will run short on water at the same time due to the ice sheet melting in the North and the South Pole the oceans will begin to rise which will be felt mostly along the gulf coast states and Florida as well as much of the Eastern Seaboard it's for this reason that as these places become harder and harder to live in people will likely move to where there are fewer issues overall in one of those places will almost certainly be the Great Lakes region of the United States in fact Buffalo New York is expected to be one of the safest cities in the contiguous U.S in terms of climate change risk and the simple fact that the Great Lakes themselves hold about 21 of All Surface fresh water will mean that the region at large will be relatively safe from the expected prolonged periods of drought that will increase in frequency so while current population estimates have most of the population moving to states such as Texas Florida and Georgia that's only if current trends continue as they are today with an outlying Factor such as climate change on the horizon those tens of millions of immigrants and more could offer the northern states instead those are two huge predictions that could dramatically reshape the United States as we know it they're also the two with the most variability the US for example could clamp down on immigration in which case the country could potentially not grow at all or even shrink like we're starting to see in countries like Japan our next three predictions are far more likely to happen but before we get to our next three predictions if you're enjoying this video hit that subscribe button more fun geography videos are just a single click away [Music] foreign [Music] the United States has been talking about for a long time but very little of it has actually materialized to date outside of some small segments of Amtrak's to sell a service in the Northeast Corridor most regions barely have any form of Passenger rail at all high speed or otherwise but by 2050 that will change significantly for starters the country's most infamous High-Speed Rail Line California High-Speed Rail should begin full service from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 2033 an additional Phase 2 of the project is also being planned right now which would see further connections to Sacramento and San Diego effectively linking all major California cities by High-Speed Rail two other High-Speed Rail services that are pretty far along in their development are the Texas Central high-speed rail from Houston to Dallas and the Florida brightline extension that will connect Miami to Orlando both should be complete well before 2050 and with three primary examples of High-Speed Rail operating within the country by 2030 this will undoubtedly lead to more projects popping up around the country by 2050 there will likely be additional high-speed passenger trained services to facilitate quick rail Transportation within key regions in the Pacific Northwest a high-speed rail line is being looked at to connect Portland Oregon to Vancouver British Columbia by way of Seattle back in California a high-speed rail route from Las Vegas to Los Angeles should either be complete or nearing completion in the Southeast a route connecting Atlanta to Washington DC by way of Charlotte could be fully realized and of course in the train capital of the country Chicago we could see the first ever High-Speed Rail Hub connecting the city 82 Minneapolis St Louis Indianapolis Cleveland and Detroit and due to the speed and convenience of High-Speed Rail as well as other changes in lane use already being implemented the US will very likely see a change in development within its cities foreign [Music] places in the U.S primarily New York Chicago Philadelphia and San Francisco most cities have followed a pretty typical development pattern over the last 100 years and even in those named cities their suburbs are often more like other suburbs around the country than they are to their core cities all that's to say Most Metro regions in the United States have a very small downtown core area with skyscrapers followed by a sea of low density buildings single-family homes and big box retail stores and Outlets this type of development pattern has been in existence since the early 1900s when the idea of the suburb was just starting out and it was largely the byproduct of a zoning law that allowed for large parts of every city to be dedicated to the building of nothing but large lot single-family homes and while this kind of development worked well for the 1900s in the 2000s it's definitely showing its age with more people cramming into cities than ever before states are starting to see that they're not able to fit enough housing into their cities and this has caused large spikes in the cost of housing in basically every Metropolitan region in the country to combat this states such as Maine Oregon Washington and California have enacted laws that allow for more types of housing to be built within cities in Oregon where once only single-family houses were allowed in many residential zones today a State law has forced every city to allow for duplexes triplexes and quad plexes in those same areas and this isn't just for the bigger cities of Portland and Eugene but for all Incorporated cities in the state as these laws take effect over the coming decades the cities will start to look and feel a little different Portland will not ever likely look like New York City but it will feel more dense and Alive than it does today and with four states already pioneering this it's likely that we'll see additional States adopting more Progressive zoning structure in order to keep housing prices attainable for the people living in them [Music] foreign States has bold plans to plant a lot more trees according to the global Forest watch the country has been losing more trees than it plants every single year due to a combination of urbanization wildfires and the forestry industry but in the future we could see a radical reversal of this trend right now the U.S department of Agriculture is planning on adding an additional 1 billion new trees to its Collective forests by the year 2030. one billion new trees is essentially the same as adding a full Connecticut's worth of forest to the country and while that might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things the fact that trees are still the best way to capture carbon from the atmosphere adding additional treats to the nation's Forest will be integral to ensure that the effects of climate change are relatively muted not only that but this is just until 2030 seven years away from today if the United States kept its new pace of tree planting it could potentially plant 4 billion new trees by 2050 which would be a new Forest that's closer to the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined that's a lot more trees for the 4 chorus which means a lot more natural areas for wildlife and more carbon sucking for humans 2050 is right around the corner and in truth all of this could happen and more nobody can truly predict what's going to happen over the next two and a half decades but with a little luck all of the good things coming our way will happen and all the bad things will quickly dissipate I hope you enjoyed learning about some of the geographic events that are expected to change the US by 2050. if you did please subscribe to my channel and if you want to watch more of my videos you can do so here thanks for watching see you next time

Channel: Geography By Geoff

Views: 771,340

Keywords: geography, geography by geoff, geography youtube, youtube videos about geography, real life lore, geography now, geography quiz, geography facts, great lakes, great lakes region of the united states, great lakes region, great lakes states, michigan, illinois, wisconsin, indiana, ohio, why so many americans move south, climate change, climate emergency, us population, usa population, high speed rail, us forests, forests in the united states, density, city density

Id: 8KA4UgLU66Q

Length: 10min 16sec (616 seconds)

Published: Mon May 08 2023