CHARLIE ROSE: Joel Kotkin is here. He is a distinguished
presidential fellow in urban futures at Capp University in California.
His new book is called "The Next 100 Million -- America in 2050." This
book imagines what is America will look like 40 years from now when the
population will grow from 300 to 400 million.
I am pleased to have Joel Kotkin at this table. Welcome.
JOEL KOTKIN: Great to be here.
CHARLIE ROSE: So tell me how you came to write this? What does a
geographer do?
JOEL KOTKIN: Well, geography is one of those skills that`s
declined, like history, over time. You try to understand how people fit
in with space, with place, with this particular location.
And the reason I came to the book was one thing. One is that after
we had 300 million I asked a demographer friend, well, when we do we get
to 400 hundred million. He said about 2050. I said, well, somebody
ought to be writing about this.
CHARLIE ROSE: It was a nice sort of timeline.
JOEL KOTKIN: It`s a milestone like 300 million was. And, you
never know, we never thought we could support 300 million people, and in
many ways the country`s better than it was when it was 200 million.
And the other thing was I felt like the -- and I have to say this
as a boomer myself. I think we boomers left -- are leaving leave our
Read the full transcript here, or you can view the full interview and conversation here. See also: The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050
, The City: A Global History (Modern Library Chronicles)
, Tribes: How Race, Religion and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy
, The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape
