Probably worth pointing out as well that enormous coastal cities don't need more people and may be smart not to encourage more people to move there. The last thing Southern California needs is a few million more people, fighting for the same space on the highways and the housing markets. As Americans, we're so thoroughly conditioned to believe growth is always good, when it's clearly not.
In 1950, Philadelphia had 2,071,605 people. Today (2013 estimates, that is) it has 1,553,165 people.
The coastal cities can
absolutely handle more people, if we make the right investments and don't let NIMBYism ruin everything. And, of course, the people need our coastal cities too, and the failure of them to accommodate everyone who wants to move in (without pushing the current residents out) is one of the greatest tragedies in American life today.
