Comment by kaufmae

7 days ago

most of the immigrants are highly educated professionals, big tech, pharma and meds. it‘s not the „empty“.

I think at least in Germany it's not true - among people coming to Germany there are more refugees of various kinds than professionals

They definitely aren't, but whomever they are they still requires houses, power and water.

  • And literally all the limits on those things are artificial. Its the same right wing idiots that want this referendum that prevent smart transportation infrastructure in cities, that delay important transportation investments, that prevent bike infrastructure, that had the brilliant plan of buying cheap energy from France and Germany and so on.

France is mostly empty by Europe's population density standard though, so even though it was likely not the intent of GP, it kind of works in that context.

  • >France is mostly empty

    Which is so weird! France has large amounts of good farmland, some of the most modern (and unified, unlike Germany) government in Europe for a long time etc... no obvious reason to have just half the population density of Germany.

    • It's mostly a matter of when the demographic transition started: https://nitter.net/pic/media%2FGEDBLvOXUAANUlK.png%3Fname%3D...

      France used to be “the China of Europe” (which is why we kept being at war with the whole continent at once). Had France followed their neighbors' demographic, it would be home to more than 200 million people today.

      The demographic collapse of France in the 19th century, while Germany kept growing, alone explains the French defeat in 1870 (and then the two world wars).

      More data on that piece of history, and a hypothesis to explain it, here: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/frances-baby-bust/

    • > no obvious reason to have just half the population density of Germany.

      France was historically always focused on Paris, because that was where the Emperor was. If you were not a farmer, there was little reason to live anywhere but Paris or other large cities.

      In contrast, Germany historically consisted of thousands of small fiefdoms that each held some sort of local importance and each held authority of some sort. The Kaiser was pretty far away and only mattered in practice when the Kaiserreich was involved in some sort of conflict.

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Can you back up your claims? I don't have a dog in this fight, but do notice people ridiculing migrants as "doctors and engineers".