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Overpopulation in Hawaii

Hawaii is the 50th State in the US. Many people come to the islands every year. Despite Hawaii being one of the most beautiful states there is a problem that it has. This problem is overpopulation. Overpopulation is when a place is populated with excessively large numbers. Hawaii falls under this and there are examples why. There are a lot of homeless people in Hawaii because they are being sent here from the mainland. This is mainly due to the climate conditions in Hawaii. There are also a lot of homeless people because of the cost of living. Another reason that causes overpopulation is that there is also a lot of tourism. There is a lot of tourism because of the beauty that Hawaii has to offer. Overall, there is more and more people coming into Hawaii. This impacts things such as pollution, cost of living, and the economy of Hawaii. In 2019 the state of Hawaii had a population over 1.4 million. This is a lot of people for the amount of land that there is. Because of this, Hawaii would be considered to be overpopulated. One Island in specific is more overpopulated than the rest. This is the Island of Oahu. It has a population over 700 thousand people in the 597 square miles that the island has. Throughout this article I will break down how Hawaii is overpopulated and the effects of overpopulation in Hawaii.

Tourism in Hawaii

Tourism in Hawaii is a huge reason why there is overpopulation in Hawaii. The effects are both good and bad. In 1982, there was a study that was done amongst 632 people in Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai. In this study they wanted to find out how the residents of these islands felt about the impacts of the tourism development in Hawaii. They agreed that tourism does bring a lot of benefits such as economic and cultural benefits. At the same time, they think that it will cause environmental issues. Today, tourism in Hawaii brings a lot of money to the economy. Tourism in Hawaii makes 21% of the state’s economy. The effects of tourism are very good because Hawaii small businesses will not go out of business. Small businesses benefit from this the most because the cost of keeping a business in Hawaii is high and the tourist give them the money to stay in business. The economy in Hawaii fluctuates a lot but it is at its best when there are a lot of tourism.

Homeless in Hawaii

Tourism is a big reason why there is overpopulation, but another reason why is that there is a lot of homeless people in Hawaii. There are more homeless people in Hawaii than other states such as New York and Nevada. For every 100,000 people there are 487 homeless people. These numbers are really high. It is the nation’s highest rate per capita. The rise of the homeless population affects the economy because officials have to find a way to house them so that it does not go out of hand. Because of this, they have to spend money on sheltering these people. There is also very little room for the homeless people. According to an article by Northern Illinois University it says, “While there are shelters and programs to help the homeless, there are far fewer empty beds than are needed - about 550 on any given night in Oahu, where an estimated 4,900 of the 7,620 homeless people live, according to service providers.” This means that there is over 2 thousand people on Oahu alone that does not have somewhere to stay. This fact alone shows how overpopulated Hawaii is. The numbers will continue to grow as the economy grows. Housing prices will rise and there will be more homeless people.

Pollution and Climate Change

Any sort of population growth will affect the environment. It does not matter if it is Hawaii or another state. If there is overpopulation, it will be affected. Especially with climate change. According to a Columbia University article it says that “Future population growth is uncertain and matters for climate policy: higher growth entails more emissions and means more people will be vulnerable to climate-related impacts.” This basically means that the more people there are the higher chance that there will be climate impacts. This is not good for many reasons. Overpopulation causes climate change and climate change affects the environment greatly. It causes more flooding and more fires to say the least.

Cost of Living

Since Hawaii is such a beautiful place to live, there are a lot of people that want to. Overpopulation affects the cost of living. The cost of living in Hawaii is very high and it will keep on rising because of the supply and demand. There are not that many houses in Hawaii for the amount of people that want to live here. People that lived in Hawaii their whole life are starting to move because of the high cost. According to a study by the University of Hawaii, West Oahu, it says that “the sustaining of life for locals is most likely dependent on their families being able to afford living in Hawaii.” Since the cost of living is going up because of demand, more and more Hawaii families are relocating. In the same study it also says that, 76.3 percent of people living in Hawaii would consider relocation due to the cost of living.

Overview

Overall, overpopulation effects any area in a positive and negative way. Overpopulation is something that will be very hard to control because the world is always growing. In a book called The Repugnant Conclusion it showed the amount of people and how it relates to the quality of life. It showed that the more people there were the lower quality of life was. This can translate to the overpopulation in Hawaii and in our world. These effects will affect every single one of us. Overpopulation is a problem that we deal with in our world today. Hawaii is affected by this and this tropical state will become more and more industrialized to deal with the overpopulation. Whether it is tourist, or homelessness, or residents, we are all people and we are all a part of this. The effects of overpopulation will change the way Hawaii is in the near future.