Population growth in both underdeveloped and developed nations can cause an array of problems. These problems typically include deficiencies in health care programs, lack of resources and pollution. Unfortunately, certain difficulties, such as malnourishment due to food shortages, may spark related crises, such as outbreaks of disease due to malnourishment. In order to combat these problems, a government's lawmakers and leaders must implement wise policies that concentrate on vital reform measures.
Malnutrition and disease are concerns that must be addressed by regions that experience high population growth. Even in developed nations such as the United States, poor, displaced or elderly citizens are unable to receive access to sufficient health care. In highly populated urban areas of these developed nations, just as much as in third world nations, diseases can easily spread when people are residing in close quarters. A person's susceptibility to diseases like malaria and respiratory infections is aggravated by malnutrition. Profound immuno-suppression is also exacerbated in victims of HIV as a result of malnutrition.
Allocation of Resources
Land, one of nature's most valuable resources, may suffer soil erosion as a result of overgrazing and the unwise use of farming techniques. Scarce resources may also include food, water, access to adequate health care and even educational opportunities. Wise allocation of resources through social circumscription measures may alleviate such problems as they are experienced within dense populations. Highly populated urban regions may have better access to industrial remedies for these problems than their less-populated rural counterparts.
Population pressure has been cited as an instigator of anomie, which is a state of alienation related to social standards that are either inflexible or altogether absent. Subjects who experience anomie are often motivated to commit acts of crime against fellow members of society as a result of cultural conflicts, conflicts of values or sex-role conflicts. Deviant behavior, such as criminal acts committed by sociopaths, is often more difficult for investigators to detect in highly populated areas than in sparsely populated regions. As a result of other problems associated with a dense population, such as poverty and malnutrition, crime is often the only way for people to gain access to a variety of resources.
Issues such as air pollution stemming from industrial activity, waterborne infections carried through unsanitary drinking water, and mismanagement of solid waste plague densely populated areas of the world. Major cities with high populations create a significant amount of pollution through factory waste and automobile emissions. In the absence of sufficient regulation, environmentalists allege that these cities severely damage the earth's atmosphere. By contrast, underdeveloped regions with dense populations can cause damage to the earth's soil via groundwater pollution or crude farming techniques.
Need for Government Relief Programs
Injustices resulting from a poor distribution of wealth within an highly populated society tend to reveal inadequacies in governmental relief programs. In bustling urban areas, such injustices may include a tradition of corruption within law enforcement agencies, which are challenged to keep tabs on their vast networks of employees. Less developed regions, also subject to population pressure, tend to exhibit the savage consequences of these injustices through uncontrollable poverty levels, high levels of illiteracy and child abuse. Government agencies in such regions can be rendered impotent with regard to their abilities to initiate effective reform programs, because of insufficient funds and the inexperience of leaders in implementing such reform measures.
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