Do with this what you will...
Someone (actually Roy Fahringer, for those who remember him from Long Beach) told me an improbable statistic some years ago: if the entire current population of the world were to be placed inside the borders of the state of Utah, each person would have something like ten square feet of living space.
I never really questioned this, until this little tidbit came drifting up through my memory over lunch today, and I shared it with Katrina and her uncle. Neither thought it remotely possible, and I began to have my doubts. So, armed with curiosity (and a broadband internet connection), I ran upstairs and went on Google.
First, I found out the area of Utah, which comes out to 84,904 sqare miles. If you subtract the area covered with water, which is 2,736 sqare miles, you end up with a grand total of 82,168 square miles of land. (Of course, this doesn't take into consideration livable land, i.e., that not on the sides of mountains or cliffs or whatnot. Just bear with me).
Anyway, not knowing it off the top of my head, I asked Google to calculate how many square feet there are in a square mile. Google's impressive calculator function returned the figure 27, 878,400 square feet in a square mile. Multiplying this by the total square land miles in Utah yields a result of 2,290,712,371,200 square feet.
Here's where it gets interesting.
Dividing 2,290,712,371,200 by US Census Bureau's estimate of current world population (6,443,127,170, as of this writing), one ends up with a total square footage for each person currently alive on earth within just the boundaries of the state of Utah of 355.5 square feet. Not 10, not 100, 355.5.
Every. Person. On. Earth. 355 and a half square feet. If we were all squashed into Utah.
Fascinating.
posted by scooter @ 4:23 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
So interesting. Just a hair smaller than an 18x20 room? Mmmm, could be worse -- like a 6x10 in San Quentin, with a scary roommate.
Still, I think any latent agoraphobia I might possess would really kick in gear, unless I got a choice spot along the Arizona or Nevada border. Now there's livin.
Imagine how much room we would have if you put everyone in Texas. Plus the winters would be better and there wouldn't be the cliff problem.
I am sure the cholera outbreak would be just as bad, plus growing crops and commuting to work would be a mess. Maybe we could all work in Okalhoma?
You have to be a little careful, since that 355 square feet would include your "share" of public spaces as well.
The point is not that we could all live in Utah -- we couldn't -- but that next time someone tells you the world is being overpopulated and well all soon be standing with our arms over our heads bumping into each other, you can point out how silly that is. In fact, most of the world -- not just most of Utah -- is completely uninhabited.
I've found in conversaetions with various people that they basically don't believe this. Lots of people think the whole world is like Manhatten. If they fly from LaGuardia to LAX and happen to look out the window over the deserts of Utah or Nevada or New Mexico, they must think they are just oo high up to see all the buildings....
If the person responds by saying we have enough room but would run out of food, I've heard that if all the arable land in Texas were put under cultivation, it would be enough to feed the entire world. (I don't know an easy way to confirm this.)
ha that is an interesting bit of information to file away in the back of my mind for future use....i will have to dazzle people with that info someday...my older sister actually lives in a house in the city of orange in california that is considered the smallest house in orange county! it comes in at just over 400 sq feet, only 50 or so sq feet larger than your figure...i'll have to let her know she lives in a veritable castle!!!
This is fun. I actually heard that you could fit the entire population of the world inside the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida at arm's length. Jacksonville boasts 758 square miles to its borders, so 21,131,827,200 square feet gives each of 6,443,127,170 exactly 3.28 square feet. That's a 1.81 x 1.81 square to stand in. Probably couldn't live like that long, but it is better than some of the lines I've stood in for hours to see political candidates or bands.
I think the line I stood in to see Episode III was something like what Steve's describing above...
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