in the article of the reasons for the slowing population growth.

Though as that always goes hand in hand with economic development in general those two can be difficult to distinguish from each other.

That's a reason our environmental situation is so difficult. Not to mention that India currently has well over a billion people, a number that is still growing, and they want to increase consumption. Not that you can stop them, because everyone deserves a better life, and nobody gets to tell others what they can or can't do. Especially the country that has used far more than its fair share of the planet.

It seems to be more about the education and economic power of women, availability of birth control, better medicine, a broader more interesting diet, and maybe most of all, optimism about the future.

The "Western" industrial model of More Cars! More Highways! More Meat! Giant skyscrapers! may not be the best way to increase the prosperity and optimism within a nation.

Modern consumer "bling" can be as simple as bright fabrics and fashions and cell phones. It can be bicycles. It doesn't have to be a resource intensive big house in the suburbs and big cars in the driveway, with a riding mower to cover two acres of useless lawn.

Modern indoor plumbing doesn't have to be resource intensive copper and iron anymore. Cross-linked polyethylene water pipe is amazing stuff, ABS and other plastic waste pipe is too. The main sewage line of our city was recently replaced with plastic pipe. Old leaky steel water mains are being replaced with plastic.

It will be interesting, and sometimes horrific, to see how well societies cope with global warming. Highly industrialized or high-finance-nearly-everything-monetized-including-futures "consumer" societies of the traditional capitalist model may not fare as well as some societies that have a different opinion of what a "good life" actually means.

I have two quick examples from my observations of my own kids, nephews, nieces, and their peers. Many of them are entirely disinterested in automobiles, going so far as to not bother with drivers licences and having zero interest in cars. They'd rather live in The City (a number of cities..) than be burdened with a car. That would be unthinkable when I was their age. Anyone who didn't rush out to get their drivers license within a few days of their sixteenth birthday was a freak. Kids in our family don't think it's weird. Maybe a shrug, "Oh, he (or she) doesn't drive."

They don't think vegetarians or vegans are weird either. A big juicy steak for dinner is not a sign of affluence to them, in fact most think it's sort of gross.

But they do think my disinterest in smart phones and the peculiar early 1980's Unix way I use computers is just plain weird.

Called I think "Who is poor? And who gets to decide that?"

Thanks for sharing that.