One Billion Americans
{{Short description|2020 book by Matthew Yglesias}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox book
| name = One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger
| author = Matthew Yglesias
| image = File:One Billion Americans.jpg
| caption = First edition
| language = English
| country = United States
| publisher = Penguin Random House
| isbn = 978-0-593-19021-0
| pub_date = September 15, 2020
| pages = 288
}}
One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger is a book by Matthew Yglesias, first published in 2020. One Billion Americans argues that America is not over-crowded and that the USA should aim to increase its population to 1 billion in order to counterbalance China and be "the greatest nation on Earth".{{cite web |last1=Walsh |first1=Bryan |title=The argument for a billion Americans |url=https://www.axios.com/billion-americans-yglesias-matthew-vox-population-2b9ade6e-7346-4460-8dd2-5bd86b13a02a.html |website=Axios |date=September 12, 2020 |access-date=5 March 2022}}
In order to support growth, Yglesias argues for a variety of programs, including increased government spending on child care and day care, the use of S-trains for urban transportation, and increased immigration to the United States, under the general rubric of increasing the American population.{{cite news |last=Salmon |first=Felix |author-link=Felix Salmon |date=2020-09-15 |title=Matthew Yglesias Thinks There Should Be 'One Billion Americans' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/books/review/one-billion-americans-matthew-yglesias.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=2020-10-21}}{{cite web |last=Walsh |first=Bryan |date=September 12, 2020 |title=The Argument for a Billion Americans |url=https://www.axios.com/billion-americans-yglesias-matthew-vox-population-2b9ade6e-7346-4460-8dd2-5bd86b13a02a.html |website=Axios |access-date=2020-10-21}} It suggests that a substantial increase to the population of the United States is necessary to perpetuate American hegemony.{{cite web |last=Compernolle |first=Will |date=2020-10-19 |title=Why Haven't They Been Done Yet: Examining Policies in 'One Billion Americans' |url=https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/reviews/havent-done-yet-examining-policies-one-billion-americans/ |website=BLARB |publisher=Los Angeles Review of Books |access-date=2020-10-21}} The book gives special attention to housing policy, critiquing zoning requirements that limit urban density in American cities.{{cite web |date=2020-07-15 |title=One Billion Americans |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/matthew-yglesias/one-billion-americans/ |website=Kirkus Reviews |access-date=2020-10-21}}
Critical response
Kirkus Reviews wrote that "the thesis is eminently arguable, but the book is packed full of provocative ideas well worth considering". Publishers Weekly called Yglesias's arguments about environmental impacts "not entirely convincing", but praised his proposals on immigration and cities, calling the book an optimistic call to action that is worth considering.{{Cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-593-19021-0|title=Nonfiction Book Review: One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger|website=Publishers Weekly}}
Jacob Bacharach panned One Billion Americans in a review for The New Republic, arguing that the policies it recommends are only loosely connected to Yglesias's central proposal to vastly increase the population of the United States.{{cite magazine |last=Bacharach |first=Jacob |date=2020-09-10 |title=The Emptiness of Matthew Yglesias's Biggest Idea |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/159306/emptiness-matthew-yglesias-biggest-idea-billion-americans-book-review |magazine=The New Republic |location=New York |issn=0028-6583 |access-date=2020-10-21}} Felix Salmon, reviewing One Billion Americans for The New York Times, agreed that Yglesias's individual proposals were mostly good, but largely irrelevant to the aim of a vastly increased American population, which even he admits "may be impossible and absurd".
Blogger Noah Smith called One Billion Americans "a very good book" and its argument that America's current population is sparse especially powerful, though he would have liked a more vivid and illustrative portrait of what a densely populated America would be like, and why beyond geopolitics it would be a better place to live.{{Cite web|url=https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/book-review-one-billion-americans|title=Book review: "One Billion Americans", by Matt Yglesias|first=Noah|last=Smith|date=December 18, 2020}} Barton Swaim of The Wall Street Journal had faint praise for Yglesias's pro-natalism, while damning his perceived hypocrisy in supporting a "left-liberal orthodoxy" that devalues the family and promotes excessive access to abortion and birth control and questioning his overall sincerity.{{Cite news|last=Swaim|first=Barton|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-billion-americans-review-more-people-fewer-problems-11607295232|title='One Billion Americans' Review: More People, Fewer Problems|date=December 6, 2020|work=The Wall Street Journal}}
Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs called it "bizarre and deranged ... utterly insane" of Yglesias to treat greater American power relative to the People's Republic of China as a legitimate goal, saying it amounted to "a belief that United Statesians are superior to others and deserve more", and that Yglesias was unwilling to even consider that America was bad and should have less power because he was "infected with the brain disease of nationalism".{{cite journal |last1=Robinson |first1=Nathan |title=Why Nationalism Is A Brain Disease |url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2020/11/why-nationalism-is-a-brain-disease |journal=Current Affairs |date=November 13, 2020 |access-date=29 March 2021}} Conversely, Razib Khan in National Review praised Yglesias's "liberal nationalist" conviction that a strong and powerful America is good for the whole world, calling it "firmly in the traditional mainstream" versus the anti-patriotic taboos of leftist cultural elites; he did feel that Yglesias could have been more convincing in places, and seemed to take the implications of his proposals rather lightly.{{Cite web|last=Khan|first=Razib|author-link=Razib Khan|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/book-review-one-billion-americans-matt-yglesias-argues-for-mass-immigration/|title=One Billion Americans: A Contrarian Liberal Argues for Mass Immigration|date=September 12, 2020|work=National Review}}
See also
- Demographic history of the United States
- Demographics of the United States
- Immigration to the United States
- People and organizations arguing that Canada should increase its population to 100 million:
- Century Initiative
- Doug Saunders, in his book Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough (2017)