[danteembermage]

I'm also wondering if there aren't deeply ingrained subconscious feelings about raising children that come from a natural even evolutionary response to crowding in our immediate environment. A species which naturally reduces fertility in response to crowding will be less likely to experience explosive growth followed by terrible crashes as all available food sources are exhausted for mere survival. The fertility rates were really low in the NIMH mice utopia studies when population density was high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun

[anigbrowl]

The US ranks #184 among countries in terms of population density. I don't think your theory is borne out by reality when you consider that lots of other countries have higher fertility rates and much larger cities with greater overall population density.

[nikster]

Well if you want to live anywhere you can actually find a job youll live in a densely populated area in the US. Sure there's a lot of land in the US and I actually believe it will benefit the country in the long term - but at the moment, nobody lives there.

[philwelch]

Even densely populated parts of the US are not densely populated. We have huge yards, giant parking lots, and long drives from place to place. Aside from a handful of cities, the US is designed to resist density.

[gort]

> A species which naturally reduces fertility in response to crowding

If almost every member of a species is doing this, you need to explain what stops the rare mutant genes that don't give this behaviour from rapidly becoming more common.

[DenisM]

Another option is age segregation. If you don't see old people in your life, you might subconsciously assume either resource shortage or some other detrimental factor in the environment.