Section Summary

The human population is growing, but not as much as it has in the recent past. The growth is not even, with some places growing rapidly and other places losing population. Those places growing fastest tend to be poor. The effect of population growth is place-bound as well; highly developed places with low populations often use more resources than less developed places with more people. The impact of population can be measured in a number of ways, with each measurement providing a small insight into the dynamics of the human population. Uneven population growth and poverty are the two most important factors underlying the subject of our next chapter, Migration.