Midnight Pub

Housing the World

~tetris

Thought Experiment

How much land would be needed to give everyone some living space? And what would the world look like?

Let's give this a shot:

There are 7.9 billion people on this planet[1]

There is 150 million square km of land mass on this planet[2]

100 square meters is a pretty large space for a single person to live comfortably in.

A 4 floor house (~ 12m height) containing 2 apartments per floor is not that garish against the surrounding scenery, and houses 8 people.

Refs:

1. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area

Questions

How many buildings do we need to construct to comfortably house everyone alive today?

How much of the Earth's surface would we need to use?

Also: I'm going to assume that families don't live together. You exist? You get your own 100m² apartment. Your newly born baby sister too.

How many 8-people buildings do we construct?

Total people / people per house:

7.9e9 / 8 = ~ 1 billion total houses

How much surface area does ~ 1 billion houses take up?

Ground area of 4 floor house: 2 * 100 m² = 200 m²

Ground area of a house * Number of houses

200 * 1e9 = 200e9 m² = 2e5 km²

What percentage of the Earth's surface area is that?

World land area: 1.5e8 km²

2e5 / 1.5e8 = 0.13 % of the Earth's surface = total surface area of Belarus.

Summary: You can tightly house all of the world's population in 8 apartment houses all within Belarus.

But Wait!

These houses will be rammed next to each other! I want some breathing space!

Okay then, let's add 1300 square meters of breathing space between houses so that each house still takes up 200m² on the ground, but requires 1500m² in total (for greenery, roads, playgrounds, etc.)

What percentage of the Earth's surface area is that?

1.5e6 / 1.5e8 = 1 % of the Earth's surface = total surface area of Iran.

Summary: You can quite comfortably house all of the world's population in 4 storey, 8-apartment houses of 100m² per person, with plenty of room for greenery, all within Iran.

Lasting Thoughts

That was a pretty conservative calculation. Now imagine a more realistic one:

2 adults and 2-kids per apartment

Houses with more than 4 floors

Adjacent houses with a common courtyard

Tell me its not feasible that we all bundle up on the Isle Of Man.

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Replies

~inquiry wrote:

You're hired as soon as I'm rich! ;-)

~ew wrote (thread):

Reminds me of one entry on my reading list: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

~pitichampi wrote (thread):

You should consider some space to plant everything you need to make beer for everybody ;)

~clownyangel wrote (thread):

These are amazing analytics! Have you considered posting them on popular sites or share them otherwise for more people? I think they could be helpful.

~johano wrote (thread):

I love these types of calculations! You should add to your analysis the space required to generate the world's energy needs solely from current-efficiency photovoltaic panels...