ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 draws on some Australian examples of public debates over population size. It examines how public concerns about crowdedness and the sustainability of urban infrastructure such as transport as well as living space are deployed to argue against population growth. Public discourse over population size often pivots between concerns related to space and concerns related to where new arrivals might come from. The chapter demonstrates how these public debates are sometimes manipulated to invoke fears about refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants in contrast to the more staid arguments about infrastructure.
