One of the benefits of being retired is that I have more time to read. One article from Popular Mechanics described research indicating that our cities are losing population and may lose as much as 23% of their population by 2100. While the article seems a bit sensational, I found it worth of a read, and it made me wonder whether our long-term healthcare planning was based on economic and population models that may turn out to be wrong.
The article asserts that the most significant depopulation will likely occur in cities in the Northeast and Midwest, some of which may experience population collapse.
If true, the article points out that the impact of that population loss, combined with an aging infrastructure may affect basic services, resource distribution, real estate value, and so on as the human and financial resources on which to draw decline.
How does this affect our ability to provide healthcare? What does this mean for health systems that provide tertiary care in large city-based academic health facilities? What would our healthcare system look like in 2100 if this diaspora indeed takes place?
There was a time when I viewed the next 100 years as a time beyond reckoning. Having lived through several changes in decade and one millennial change, that time period now seems more urgent.
What do you think?
As always, the thoughts in this blog are my own, and not necessarily those of ASHP.
Dennis A. Tribble, PharmD, FASHP
Retired
Ormond Beach, FL
datdoc@aol.com