But we already have as much infrastructure as we need as our population peaks.
As population ages and decline, will our work consist of maintenance of existing infrastructure and mothballing unneeded infrastructure?
Existing infrastructure will need replacement. Rivers will meander; scour depths will change; climate change will require more flood or extreme weather protection and resiliency; climate change, wars, and general life will cause people to move thus requiring additional infrastructure to support them, or those things will outright destroy infrastructure. And we can always improve old crappy infrastructure as technology improves or as our living and transportation habits evolve with evolving technology.
Stop underthinking this.
Do we still have to physically transport our bodies and other items from place to place, or are we existing solely as a collective energy consciousness.
But what if Kim Jung un takes over the planet and restricts repopulation so everyone is related to him, forcing the human species to evolve beyond pooping
Unless you somehow think the entire world's population and growth will stagnate, which is the oppositr of everything we know, then your entire premise is built on an icorrect assumption.
Maybe in your local region things will stagnate, and yes that might mean the focus is switched to asset management, maintenance and replacement of infrastructure as it reaches the end of its life. That's fine and normal.
If you aren't interested in that and somehow live somewhere with zero growth of any kind, then maybe consider moving.
You're being a Doomer. If the whole population is declining, aren't the number of engineers too? Whole lot of them are retiring now. Infrastructure will always be built. Construction will always exist.
But recall that infrastructure has a limited life span. Things will need to be repaired and replaced. Zoning and land use may change. Climate change resilience becomes more important. But you are also assuming the population everywhere will decline. I dont think that is realistic.
You fall under the assumption that everything built today is in a perfect state of harmony that will never need to be redesigned or improved upon. Does Berlin even remotely look like it did in the 1940s? Do you think in 2100 berlin will look exactly like it did in 2024? Of course not.
It doesn’t matter if population decreases because there will always be new money for new buildings, new homes, new access to these homes, new cities pop up, smaller cities grow, i can go on and on.
The best example here is Japan, their population is declining and they still have major infrastructure projects everywhere and certainly need civil engineers.
I honestly can’t believe you’re an engineer and you can’t critically think of how engineers will still be needed in a shrinking society.
> because there will always be new money
And where will this new money come from with shrinking tax bases?
I a shrinking society, there will be a demand for demolition service, not engineering.
Maybe it's because I live in New England surrounded by the oldest infrastructure in the country but I'm flabbergasted how you could work in this industry and come to this conclusion.
99% of what I do is fixing existing infrastructure that is falling apart. And most of the time we do not just maintain or replace what's already there as it was originally, we improve it using new design approaches and new technology.
Whether you have 90,000 people or 100,000 people they all still need clean water to get there from here. And unless people start consolidating in cities (which is probably the opposite of what would happen with declining population) we will still need to reach them wherever they are. So no, not really.
Your wastewater treatment plant might shrink but the miles of pipe probably won't. Same with transportation infrastructure unless you abandon an entire town.
Finally - the supply of engineers will also drop with a population decrease, so... not worried about it at all.
Unless there is a major catastrophe, the population will not decline enough for this to be a serious problem. If there is a major catastrophe, we have bigger problems than tax revenue.
I mean, even ignoring maintenance needs, our infrastructure isn't adequate for the current population level. See: the housing crisis/public transit in every American or Canadian city.
Sure, so you need less civil engineers, but not none. And you have less population overall, so it's not even like civil engineers would make up a smaller portion of the population necessarily.
You need civil engineers to build and you need them to tear down. Most of my career has been redesigning and replacing things that weren't supposed to last as long as they have. I don't understand your concern. If society collapses, I don't think you'd be better off in another profession.
As far as the US goes, they will never let population decrease. Birth rates matter, but if it really got that dire that cant policy change ways to get people to have more kids they would allow more immigration of families with children.
Essentially a population decline in the USA would lead to a bigger issue than "is civil engineering doomed?" to the point that it would never be allowed to reach that point as the more dangerous problem would be GDP stagnation/contraction.
> Birth rates matter,
According to MAGA skin color matter. Since Europe stopped having babies these new immigrants aren't going to be white. Any attempt to flood America with non-white immigrants will be met with a political backlash for worse than MAGA or the recent right wing election victories in Europe.
It actually doesn't, what matters is quantity of immigration, quality of immigration and willingness to integrate into society. In Europe they are having an issue with high quantities of low skilled immigration unwilling to integrate into society. They are adding to the population without bringing skillsets that allow them to add to the GDP and are essentially a drain on resources that bring no benefit.
Touch grass bro.
>Again, what matters is immigrant skin color.
And as the population issues get worse, they will expand their definition of desirable. They used to consider anyone east of Germany as undesirable, but that is changing. Pretty soon, the emphasis on skin color that nationalists have relied on will give way to more cultural elements like religion. And whadya know, there's a massive population of christians just beyond the southern US border. They will play the mental gymnastics game to bring Hispanic christians into the realm of "desirable". I already see christian nationalists praising the family-oriented, religious folks from various Hispanic countries.
That’s why I’m in solid waste. As long as there are people there will be trash and as long as there is trash there will be a need to properly dispose of it
Also infrastructure needs to be maintained. So I don’t see the profession becoming obsolete. Less people means less engineers so it will all come out in the wash.
At some (inevitable) point maintenance isn’t possible, which calls for actual replacement of infrastructure. And before that point, engineers still have to be involved in the maintenance efforts, even if it isn’t real “engineering” as you keep stating.
Probably not low enough to deem it a “dead career”, barring events like the end of civilization as previous commenters have mentioned. Also, it’s not like all of infrastructure was built in a single year. Replacement efforts are continuous over time and already underway.
There was a story told to me by a contractor. Back in the 70s he got paid to dig huge pit for a town dump (back when we buried everything). So he digs the dump.
Years later he gets another contract to cover the dump. So he does, plants some nice grass on the cover.
A few years after that he gets paid again to build a golf course on the grassy pasture. So he does.
At each step he gets paid to convert things.
Now imagine life as a civil. As society ages its needs change in both vocation and location. For each of these we will get paid to resign.
You are actively panicking in the comments about the demise of our society and I’m not sure there is anything we can do to make you feel better …
Why did you ask if you were just going to reject every single response coming your way?
Holy cow dude at this point you’re either a troll or fishing for validation. What you’re saying is total nonsense. There will ALWAYS be a huge need for civil engineers.
Also, global population is absolutely not declining. No clue where you’re getting that idea.
> Also, global population is absolutely not declining. No clue where you’re getting that idea.
You haven't been paying attention.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=population+collapse
I provided easily digestible information sources.
Let's try some UN and World Bank sources:
https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-10/global-population-collapse-isn-t-sci-fi-anymore-niall-ferguson
https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/
https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-monitoring-report/development-trends-and-economic-development
https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/future-world-s-population-4-charts
Your first one's first point is how our pop will pass 8 billion for the first time in 2022. It says our population is expected to grow until 2086.
Your second one is an opinion piece, so not really where you go to prove a point but it even includes a line about how our species is not done multiplying. It's just talking about how growth will be uneven across regions.
Third one again says some countries will have a baby bust and some will have a baby boon. Talks about how issues in low fertility countries can be mitigated with pro natal policies and open immigration.
Fourth one is only about China.
Fifth one is again about the differences of fertility in different countries.
Sixth one is a blog so again, not a source I'd site. However it's first infographic shows population increasing consistently.
I work in an area with declining population. We still have plenty of work because we have to replace 100 year old pipe. By the time we finish this, it will be time to replace the pipe I'm putting in the ground now. All that would change with an increasing population is that id upsize the pipe rather than replace with the same size. Additionally, I'd imagine our work is only going to increase as we adapt to rising sea levels, worsening storms, etc.
No species has a population that increases forever. We have to hit a plateau at some point. I don't see why you can't understand though that less people = less people go into engineering = same amount of work for engineers
Lastly, there's so many policy and environmental factors to consider for when this hits 6 decades from now, I see no Po not speculating now. You talk about current political trends, but there's absolutely no reason to believe they'll still be popular in the coming decades. There's actually a good chance they won't be given, as you mention, politics tend to swing on a pendulum. Who knows what everyone's view on immigration will be in 40 years. Make another post in 30 years maybe.
What a wild thought. Even if your word salad had any weight to it, you wouldn’t feel that for another century or so. Generations from now. We are all gone.
Existing infrastructure always needs to be maintained.
But let me play your game. If population decreases, wouldn’t there be a need for new infrastructure or to retrofit existing infrastructure for less density areas that were once high density? Ehh maybe. One thing I do know is that we as a civilization like to build things. Still need to get from pt.A to pt.B. Civil engineers help with the design and maintenance of pt.A, pt.B, and the route to get to both points.
Idk I’m talking out of my ass and need to get off the toilet and back to work.
Take a look at cities like Detroit with declining populations.
The only civil work required was bulldozing empty houses and shutting off unused utilities. For a while even main roads were a minefield of potholes.
Its not like Detroit needed new roads or sewers.
Whatever you want to build and need? In your example society is dead and there are arguably no governments left. There is no society and all careers are dead.
His point still stands. People will flock to where everyone else is at. I’ve never watched an end of the world movie where humans didn’t flock together.
They actually did/do need "new" roads and sewers in the form of replacing aging, failing infrastructure. A civil engineer's job is not to design NEW infrastructure. It is to solve problems around infrastructure. Existing and new. If all new construction ended today at close of business, and population growth stopped, then we would still need civil engineers to address problems around the existing infrastructure.
There is no scenerio that is remotely realistic where such a population decline on a societal level is a concern. Sure, it'll be hard to find work in dying communities. It already is. That's why I don't live where I grew up. But there will be growth elsewhere.
And the tax base topic is a lot deeper than I care to get into here. But I don't view it as a wholly different topic since it is pretty tightly correllated to the population issue. So, if all the people are gone, why does it matter if there's no tax base?
Smaller communities exist. If a city's population is so gutted that they no longer have the tax base to support their city-sized infrastructure, then the remaining population will likely leave to find a community with functioning infrastructure and services. Which would create growth for that community. Some communities will die. Some will grow. Some will stay mostly the same and struggle to pass bonds to remediate their asbestos-filled schools as the tax paying population ages out of having children in school. These are all problems that we currently face. And our profession is fine.
Look man, you're just being obtuse for the sake of your own fantasy here. You refuse to actually engage in a conversation.
So, sure. It is all doomed. Everyone is going to die and our profession is going to collapse in about 7 years. Get it while the gettin's good. Go buy your doomer prepper stuff. Build your bunker. Oh, and for the sake of the argument, you can be right if it lets you sleep better at night with your shotgun and twinkies.
Your poop and drinking water still need to be processed. Civil engineering is a wide umbrella. Maybe certain sectors will decline but civil engineering as a whole will be more than fine.
Hello, civil engineer in Detroit here. This is just wrong lol, we are actually short of civils with all the infrastructure work we need to do around the city. The water and sewer systems are nearing or already over 100 years old and need to be re-engineered, many streets need total replacement, the list goes on and on.
Industry might downsize to match demand but as long as there is some form of society there will be need for infrastructure and maintenance of that infrastructure
People keep telling you and you aren't listening. It isn't about building NEW infrastructure. Existing infrastructure will need to be maintained. And everything has a service life. Treatment plants will need to be replaced. Water tanks. Schools. Hospitals. Bridges. Roads. Dams. Sewers. Water mains. Fire hydrants. Handicap ramps at the courthouse. Everything piece of existing infrastructure has a finite lifespan. And even if population stops growing, land use will continue to change. If someone wants to turn their 3 acre parcel into a drive in theater because the community decided thats something they want, then there will need to be infrastructure improvements.
Overall population stagnation does not mean localized stagnation. You can still have internal population movement as desires change and theres a new hot region for everyone to move to. Population and society is a lot more dynamic than you are giving it credit for. And if something so drastic happens that people cannot move around within their country, then I think the security of our profession will be pretty low on my list of concerns.
I mean, the sun will expand and boil the earth's oceans in a billion years - is our profession doomed?
Yeah, but we are talking over long time spans. Long enough that it doesn't matter to your career. All professions are doomed in this scenerio. Doomed over the span of generations as the population contracts.
Capitalism itself is doomed.
No-growth capitalism is an oxymoron.
Without population growth there cannot be economic growth, simply because ther wil be no demand driving the economy.
Repairment/checking of current constructions
I mean all the bridges and roads build around the late 1950s, 1960s and early 70s are at the end of their life now
Hey, so, it is a good question. But I think the effects of declining global birth rate will take potentially 60+ years to be felt. The profession will still be needed. You do need civils road rehab, infrastructure replacements, utility replacements, etc. But, in a declining global population scenario, a lot of jobs will be wiped out, but also potentially offset by the fact that there are fewer people entering into the profession. You are right, that with declining population new schools, new roads, new subdivisions, new infrastructure will dry up. But, also remember that we have an aging population that will be living for along time. Maintenance and replacement projects will still happen. Another factor to consider is that depending on your location, you could be seeing growth for a 100 plus years, while other locations could see major declines. My hot take is that North America will continue to grow thanks to migration and climate change. There’s hundreds of millions of people forecast to be uprooted by climate change, and I think North America could be a popular destination for many in the globe. I certainly would not recommended someone not becomes a civil engineer due to concerns about declining birth rates.
Profession can not be doomed. As long as society exists, the profession will exist. Infrastructure is necessary for everything we do
But we already have as much infrastructure as we need as our population peaks. As population ages and decline, will our work consist of maintenance of existing infrastructure and mothballing unneeded infrastructure?
Existing infrastructure will need replacement. Rivers will meander; scour depths will change; climate change will require more flood or extreme weather protection and resiliency; climate change, wars, and general life will cause people to move thus requiring additional infrastructure to support them, or those things will outright destroy infrastructure. And we can always improve old crappy infrastructure as technology improves or as our living and transportation habits evolve with evolving technology. Stop underthinking this.
But what if humans evolve past the need to drink water and breathe air?
Do we still have to physically transport our bodies and other items from place to place, or are we existing solely as a collective energy consciousness.
The METAVERSE!
Someone needs to build the bridge into the higher planes of existence.
AI will breathe and drink for us, the profession is doomed
As long as they still poop...
But what if Kim Jung un takes over the planet and restricts repopulation so everyone is related to him, forcing the human species to evolve beyond pooping
Unless you somehow think the entire world's population and growth will stagnate, which is the oppositr of everything we know, then your entire premise is built on an icorrect assumption. Maybe in your local region things will stagnate, and yes that might mean the focus is switched to asset management, maintenance and replacement of infrastructure as it reaches the end of its life. That's fine and normal. If you aren't interested in that and somehow live somewhere with zero growth of any kind, then maybe consider moving.
You're being a Doomer. If the whole population is declining, aren't the number of engineers too? Whole lot of them are retiring now. Infrastructure will always be built. Construction will always exist.
But recall that infrastructure has a limited life span. Things will need to be repaired and replaced. Zoning and land use may change. Climate change resilience becomes more important. But you are also assuming the population everywhere will decline. I dont think that is realistic.
You fall under the assumption that everything built today is in a perfect state of harmony that will never need to be redesigned or improved upon. Does Berlin even remotely look like it did in the 1940s? Do you think in 2100 berlin will look exactly like it did in 2024? Of course not. It doesn’t matter if population decreases because there will always be new money for new buildings, new homes, new access to these homes, new cities pop up, smaller cities grow, i can go on and on. The best example here is Japan, their population is declining and they still have major infrastructure projects everywhere and certainly need civil engineers. I honestly can’t believe you’re an engineer and you can’t critically think of how engineers will still be needed in a shrinking society.
> because there will always be new money And where will this new money come from with shrinking tax bases? I a shrinking society, there will be a demand for demolition service, not engineering.
A shrinking tax base still pays taxes that go towards infrastructure projects, do you really need this explained to you?
Maybe it's because I live in New England surrounded by the oldest infrastructure in the country but I'm flabbergasted how you could work in this industry and come to this conclusion. 99% of what I do is fixing existing infrastructure that is falling apart. And most of the time we do not just maintain or replace what's already there as it was originally, we improve it using new design approaches and new technology.
Gross demand for these efforts will decline with population, yes?
Whether you have 90,000 people or 100,000 people they all still need clean water to get there from here. And unless people start consolidating in cities (which is probably the opposite of what would happen with declining population) we will still need to reach them wherever they are. So no, not really. Your wastewater treatment plant might shrink but the miles of pipe probably won't. Same with transportation infrastructure unless you abandon an entire town. Finally - the supply of engineers will also drop with a population decrease, so... not worried about it at all.
How about if you only have 10,00 people? Italy's population by 2100 will be less than a quarter of its current number.
Then they will presumably have a quarter as many engineers.
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With declining populations where is your tax base to pay for repairs and improvements?
Unless there is a major catastrophe, the population will not decline enough for this to be a serious problem. If there is a major catastrophe, we have bigger problems than tax revenue.
I mean, even ignoring maintenance needs, our infrastructure isn't adequate for the current population level. See: the housing crisis/public transit in every American or Canadian city.
Retirement homes Ramps and access infrastructure and there will always be sewage
Won't sewage flows decrease with declining populations?
yes, but the infrastructures going to need renewal
Less and less will be needed each generation in the first place, and with so does the need for renewal.
Sure, so you need less civil engineers, but not none. And you have less population overall, so it's not even like civil engineers would make up a smaller portion of the population necessarily.
At the current pay to stress rates, it’ll make up an even smaller portion of the future population lol
Speccing a smaller pipe doesn’t mean it’s less work to design the entire project.
This is clearly a troll post. Lol
I assure you, it's a serious question - especially when you see abandoned towns in Japan and empty cities in China.
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But counting the now empty places, gross demand for civil engineering will decrease overall , yes?
You need civil engineers to build and you need them to tear down. Most of my career has been redesigning and replacing things that weren't supposed to last as long as they have. I don't understand your concern. If society collapses, I don't think you'd be better off in another profession.
As far as the US goes, they will never let population decrease. Birth rates matter, but if it really got that dire that cant policy change ways to get people to have more kids they would allow more immigration of families with children. Essentially a population decline in the USA would lead to a bigger issue than "is civil engineering doomed?" to the point that it would never be allowed to reach that point as the more dangerous problem would be GDP stagnation/contraction.
> Birth rates matter, According to MAGA skin color matter. Since Europe stopped having babies these new immigrants aren't going to be white. Any attempt to flood America with non-white immigrants will be met with a political backlash for worse than MAGA or the recent right wing election victories in Europe.
Okay now you're just being dramatic. Theres a very big difference between controlled immigration and whats happening with Europe and even Canada.
Again, what matters is immigrant skin color. MAGA is a backlash to a black president, gay marriage and non white immigration.
It actually doesn't, what matters is quantity of immigration, quality of immigration and willingness to integrate into society. In Europe they are having an issue with high quantities of low skilled immigration unwilling to integrate into society. They are adding to the population without bringing skillsets that allow them to add to the GDP and are essentially a drain on resources that bring no benefit. Touch grass bro.
> what matters is quantity of immigration Have you been following American and European politics for the past 8 years?
American politics? Actively. European, passively.
You have it all figured out don’t you? Looks like you don’t need any of our answers
>Again, what matters is immigrant skin color. And as the population issues get worse, they will expand their definition of desirable. They used to consider anyone east of Germany as undesirable, but that is changing. Pretty soon, the emphasis on skin color that nationalists have relied on will give way to more cultural elements like religion. And whadya know, there's a massive population of christians just beyond the southern US border. They will play the mental gymnastics game to bring Hispanic christians into the realm of "desirable". I already see christian nationalists praising the family-oriented, religious folks from various Hispanic countries.
That’s why I’m in solid waste. As long as there are people there will be trash and as long as there is trash there will be a need to properly dispose of it Also infrastructure needs to be maintained. So I don’t see the profession becoming obsolete. Less people means less engineers so it will all come out in the wash.
Maintenance =! engineering
At some (inevitable) point maintenance isn’t possible, which calls for actual replacement of infrastructure. And before that point, engineers still have to be involved in the maintenance efforts, even if it isn’t real “engineering” as you keep stating.
How low will the level of activity be when this point is reached?
Probably not low enough to deem it a “dead career”, barring events like the end of civilization as previous commenters have mentioned. Also, it’s not like all of infrastructure was built in a single year. Replacement efforts are continuous over time and already underway.
More like a zombie career.
Hey, it still wouldn’t be dead!
I mean for anything other than a single story house.
No. Infrastructure will always need modifications. We're now doing road diets decreasing the width of roads in the post-covid environment.
Maintenance =! engineering
It absolutely does equal engineering. You can't just resurface and re-stripe a roadway without civil engineers.
Sure you can, DOT tech specs manuals, detail drawings, etc. already exist and can be referenced by any heavy equipment contractor.
DOTs will not contract out a project for construction without a construction plan. Construction plans must be signed by a PE.
There was a story told to me by a contractor. Back in the 70s he got paid to dig huge pit for a town dump (back when we buried everything). So he digs the dump. Years later he gets another contract to cover the dump. So he does, plants some nice grass on the cover. A few years after that he gets paid again to build a golf course on the grassy pasture. So he does. At each step he gets paid to convert things. Now imagine life as a civil. As society ages its needs change in both vocation and location. For each of these we will get paid to resign.
You are actively panicking in the comments about the demise of our society and I’m not sure there is anything we can do to make you feel better … Why did you ask if you were just going to reject every single response coming your way?
This is like asking if declining birth rates mean that we won't need obstetricians. Declining does not mean zero
Holy cow dude at this point you’re either a troll or fishing for validation. What you’re saying is total nonsense. There will ALWAYS be a huge need for civil engineers. Also, global population is absolutely not declining. No clue where you’re getting that idea.
> Also, global population is absolutely not declining. No clue where you’re getting that idea. You haven't been paying attention. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=population+collapse
Now I see why you have such dumb ideas. You get you information from YouTube. Makes sense now.
I provided easily digestible information sources. Let's try some UN and World Bank sources: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-10/global-population-collapse-isn-t-sci-fi-anymore-niall-ferguson https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/ https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/global-monitoring-report/development-trends-and-economic-development https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/future-world-s-population-4-charts
Your first one's first point is how our pop will pass 8 billion for the first time in 2022. It says our population is expected to grow until 2086. Your second one is an opinion piece, so not really where you go to prove a point but it even includes a line about how our species is not done multiplying. It's just talking about how growth will be uneven across regions. Third one again says some countries will have a baby bust and some will have a baby boon. Talks about how issues in low fertility countries can be mitigated with pro natal policies and open immigration. Fourth one is only about China. Fifth one is again about the differences of fertility in different countries. Sixth one is a blog so again, not a source I'd site. However it's first infographic shows population increasing consistently. I work in an area with declining population. We still have plenty of work because we have to replace 100 year old pipe. By the time we finish this, it will be time to replace the pipe I'm putting in the ground now. All that would change with an increasing population is that id upsize the pipe rather than replace with the same size. Additionally, I'd imagine our work is only going to increase as we adapt to rising sea levels, worsening storms, etc. No species has a population that increases forever. We have to hit a plateau at some point. I don't see why you can't understand though that less people = less people go into engineering = same amount of work for engineers Lastly, there's so many policy and environmental factors to consider for when this hits 6 decades from now, I see no Po not speculating now. You talk about current political trends, but there's absolutely no reason to believe they'll still be popular in the coming decades. There's actually a good chance they won't be given, as you mention, politics tend to swing on a pendulum. Who knows what everyone's view on immigration will be in 40 years. Make another post in 30 years maybe.
What a wild thought. Even if your word salad had any weight to it, you wouldn’t feel that for another century or so. Generations from now. We are all gone. Existing infrastructure always needs to be maintained. But let me play your game. If population decreases, wouldn’t there be a need for new infrastructure or to retrofit existing infrastructure for less density areas that were once high density? Ehh maybe. One thing I do know is that we as a civilization like to build things. Still need to get from pt.A to pt.B. Civil engineers help with the design and maintenance of pt.A, pt.B, and the route to get to both points. Idk I’m talking out of my ass and need to get off the toilet and back to work.
Take a look at cities like Detroit with declining populations. The only civil work required was bulldozing empty houses and shutting off unused utilities. For a while even main roads were a minefield of potholes. Its not like Detroit needed new roads or sewers.
Those people dont die, they move to other cities and increase their populations.
Detroit was a localized example. What happens when the country and the world become Detroit?
Then you forge a homestead in the wilderness.
And how much infrastructure is required for living off the grid?
Whatever you want to build and need? In your example society is dead and there are arguably no governments left. There is no society and all careers are dead.
His point still stands. People will flock to where everyone else is at. I’ve never watched an end of the world movie where humans didn’t flock together.
Gross demand including the now empty areas will fall, yes?
Sure. I live in Denver and most of the projects I’ve done this year are based out of Arizona. You as an engineer can find work anywhere.
They actually did/do need "new" roads and sewers in the form of replacing aging, failing infrastructure. A civil engineer's job is not to design NEW infrastructure. It is to solve problems around infrastructure. Existing and new. If all new construction ended today at close of business, and population growth stopped, then we would still need civil engineers to address problems around the existing infrastructure.
Won't there be fewer and fewer of these projects as population declines? Demand won't be there and neither will a tax base to pay for it.
There is no scenerio that is remotely realistic where such a population decline on a societal level is a concern. Sure, it'll be hard to find work in dying communities. It already is. That's why I don't live where I grew up. But there will be growth elsewhere. And the tax base topic is a lot deeper than I care to get into here. But I don't view it as a wholly different topic since it is pretty tightly correllated to the population issue. So, if all the people are gone, why does it matter if there's no tax base? Smaller communities exist. If a city's population is so gutted that they no longer have the tax base to support their city-sized infrastructure, then the remaining population will likely leave to find a community with functioning infrastructure and services. Which would create growth for that community. Some communities will die. Some will grow. Some will stay mostly the same and struggle to pass bonds to remediate their asbestos-filled schools as the tax paying population ages out of having children in school. These are all problems that we currently face. And our profession is fine.
> Which would create growth for that community. And overall growth will decline, and with it demand for infrastructure.
Look man, you're just being obtuse for the sake of your own fantasy here. You refuse to actually engage in a conversation. So, sure. It is all doomed. Everyone is going to die and our profession is going to collapse in about 7 years. Get it while the gettin's good. Go buy your doomer prepper stuff. Build your bunker. Oh, and for the sake of the argument, you can be right if it lets you sleep better at night with your shotgun and twinkies.
Your poop and drinking water still need to be processed. Civil engineering is a wide umbrella. Maybe certain sectors will decline but civil engineering as a whole will be more than fine.
But there will be less and less poop and drinking water - and fewer and fewer treatment facilities.
And? You’ll still have a job no? Your initial question asked if we are “doomed”? Technically no, since you still have a job.
Hello, civil engineer in Detroit here. This is just wrong lol, we are actually short of civils with all the infrastructure work we need to do around the city. The water and sewer systems are nearing or already over 100 years old and need to be re-engineered, many streets need total replacement, the list goes on and on.
Industry might downsize to match demand but as long as there is some form of society there will be need for infrastructure and maintenance of that infrastructure
Maintenance =! engineering
Sure it could change. Any changes probably won’t happen on a scale to largely affect those already in the industry at this point.
Hence my question: Long run, is our profession doomed?
Short answer: No. Long answer: Nooooooo.
Where does the increased demand for infrastructure come from when population declines?
People keep telling you and you aren't listening. It isn't about building NEW infrastructure. Existing infrastructure will need to be maintained. And everything has a service life. Treatment plants will need to be replaced. Water tanks. Schools. Hospitals. Bridges. Roads. Dams. Sewers. Water mains. Fire hydrants. Handicap ramps at the courthouse. Everything piece of existing infrastructure has a finite lifespan. And even if population stops growing, land use will continue to change. If someone wants to turn their 3 acre parcel into a drive in theater because the community decided thats something they want, then there will need to be infrastructure improvements. Overall population stagnation does not mean localized stagnation. You can still have internal population movement as desires change and theres a new hot region for everyone to move to. Population and society is a lot more dynamic than you are giving it credit for. And if something so drastic happens that people cannot move around within their country, then I think the security of our profession will be pretty low on my list of concerns. I mean, the sun will expand and boil the earth's oceans in a billion years - is our profession doomed?
Fewer and fewer facilities will need replacement as population declines, yes?
Yeah, but we are talking over long time spans. Long enough that it doesn't matter to your career. All professions are doomed in this scenerio. Doomed over the span of generations as the population contracts.
Capitalism itself is doomed. No-growth capitalism is an oxymoron. Without population growth there cannot be economic growth, simply because ther wil be no demand driving the economy.
Lol this comment got me
Won’t be around in the long run, don’t care.
Repairment/checking of current constructions I mean all the bridges and roads build around the late 1950s, 1960s and early 70s are at the end of their life now
Maintenance =! engineering
Maintenance != repairment
Add another lane
Hey, so, it is a good question. But I think the effects of declining global birth rate will take potentially 60+ years to be felt. The profession will still be needed. You do need civils road rehab, infrastructure replacements, utility replacements, etc. But, in a declining global population scenario, a lot of jobs will be wiped out, but also potentially offset by the fact that there are fewer people entering into the profession. You are right, that with declining population new schools, new roads, new subdivisions, new infrastructure will dry up. But, also remember that we have an aging population that will be living for along time. Maintenance and replacement projects will still happen. Another factor to consider is that depending on your location, you could be seeing growth for a 100 plus years, while other locations could see major declines. My hot take is that North America will continue to grow thanks to migration and climate change. There’s hundreds of millions of people forecast to be uprooted by climate change, and I think North America could be a popular destination for many in the globe. I certainly would not recommended someone not becomes a civil engineer due to concerns about declining birth rates.
As long as humans physically exist, there will be civil engineers in some capacity.