Opinion: Is Long Island Becoming Overpopulated?

You are driving home from work, or others are driving home from work, and the traffic is horrendous. Yet it is not a holiday, it's just the way it has become on the many arteries that reach into the towns and villages that make up Long Island.

According to multiple reports, there are 1,940,332 cars for the 7,838,722 residents, according to the 2015 census, of Long Island (when including Queens and Brooklyn). That number of cars does not include second homeowners or folks who register their cars out of state in locations such as Vermont or Michigan. With people becoming Uber drivers and the failure and unpopularity of public transportation on the island, that number is only going to increase.

Long Island is the most populated island in any United States state or territory including Manhattan. It is the 18th most populated island in the world,, including Great Britain, which comes in at #3, and Taiwan, at #7. Long Island is ahead of #19, Ireland. The population density of Long Island is 5,595 people per square mile. Now that is not quite like Manhattan, which has a population density of 28,210 people per square mile but it is 20 percent of Manhattan and for a place known as suburbia that number is frightening — and it's growing.

Years ago in 1970 the public was alarmed when, in a 20 year period, the population of Long Island doubled to 1.6 million people. Experts thought the "great migration" (as they called it then) to Long Island was over. Now with the population of Long Island approaching, if not just over, 8 million the question to ask is, "What is the capacity of the island before it becomes an urban island?"

All over the island there are new housing construction projects perhaps highlighted by the phenomenal condo and apartments built in booming Patchogue in the last few years. Even so, according to MLSLI.com, Long Island real estate home prices have increased now for eight quarters. In November the median price of a Long Island home was $435,000, up 8.75 percent so far in 2017. The trends long term are all pointing toward oversaturation. What will that mean?

The largest tax usually for the Long Island taxpayer is the school tax. Even with new increase limits in place the tax is increasing yearly and projections of 10 years from now sees today's tax perhaps doubled. With more teachers using their pensions, even hiring new teachers at smaller salaries will not diminish this growth. When you also factor in healthcare coverage costs, watch out. Since almost all of the teachers live on Long Island and teach our children we do not want to lower the quality of teaching on the island or the salaries but the fact is there will be a point when the cost of education becomes perhaps unsustainable. You just can't have a town capacity for students and say sold out go elsewhere.

I am hoping this article will open Long Islanders' eyes to the reality that the island is becoming perhaps overcrowded and to the idea that better long term planning needs to be done by political leaders.

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