Overpopulation at Root of Problems

Regarding the editorial “Back to the Future for Orange County” (April 25): If we want “to make the county for future generations all it (and the Southland) has been”--which was clean air, free-flowing traffic, relaxed lifestyle, low crime rate, realistic values on real estate and plenty of room for nature and people to coexist--we will have to reduce the population to what it was when we had these qualities. Population reduction will be necessary because, whether we like it or not, technology cannot solve everything.

Now, I am not saying that it would be possible to reduce the population, nor am I saying that if we could reduce the population sufficiently to restore these lost amenities, the result would be the same.

What I am saying is that as long as our population density is great, as it is now, we will continue to have smog, traffic congestion, a frenetic lifestyle, a high crime rate (as in other densely populated cities), overly inflated real estate values and battles between environmentalists and developers. We might as well learn to live with the problems that come with overpopulation.

JUANITA MATASSA

Santa Ana