AHC: Cuban Population of 30 million

Exactly what it says on the tin. With a PoD any time after the annexation of the island of Cuba by the Spanish Empire, get Cuba to have at least 30 million people.

Edit: Please, no World War Z.
 
Cuba's demographics have been pretty stagnant for a very long time though right? I think you might need a very different colonisation.
 
Looking at population history charts, the Cuban population started hitting demographic transition around late 70s/early 80s. I'm guessing that those were due to policies from Castro/etc. (eg. the Cuban Literacy Campaign which drastically raised the literacy rate by 1961 end.) Butterflying away the Cuban Revolution alone could probably get the population up to 15-20 million by today. Not enough alone, of course.
 
A non communist Cuba would likely result in a large population boost in the mid-late 20th century. But 30 million is unlikely the island might not support it.

Cuba as part of a larger country (not the US) where it is the administration / business center of said territory (maybe a Cuba + Florida + some other islands) and the island can exploit the riches of the other land (so it acts more like a colonizer) sure it is possible. But how do you get there?
 
Cuba joins the Union after the Spanish-American War.

Cuba could experience the Florida effect where all of the old retiring people from the North go to retire, look at the population change from 1940-2000 Florida and compare that to the rest of the Union. :O
 
Or alternatively Communist Cuba looks more towards Mao's policies and adopts their earlier "everyone have as many children as possible" policy (admittedly an unlikely scenario).

"The absurd argument of bourgeois Western economists like Malthus that increases in food cannot keep up with increases in population was not only refuted long ago by Marxists, but has also been completely exploded by the realities in the Soviet Union and the liberated areas of China after the revolution.”

The downside is that despite what Mao claimed, Cuba cannot support that many people and the whole country would be entirely dependent on food imports from the Soviet Union.
 
Cuba could experience the Florida effect where all of the old retiring people from the North go to retire, look at the population change from 1940-2000 Florida and compare that to the rest of the Union. :O

I could see that. A Cuba that's a US state, or a US partner/ally would probably see the retiree/tourist money that Flordia saw OTL. IIRC, pre-Cuban Revolution Florida wasn't the tourist powerhouse it is today, and Miami didn't really get going until it got flooded with rich Cubans fleeing the revolution.

You could also buff Cuba up at the expense of the US. If the US fell apart during the depression (a second civil war or something), Cuba would probably get flooded with refugee's and/or moneyed interests.
 
Cuba's demographics have been pretty stagnant for a very long time though right? I think you might need a very different colonisation.

It has, yes, Cuba has never actually had really large scale population growth, I mean in the century between 1817-1917 the population only grew by 1.5 million (compared to other countries with similar start numbers that grew by several million), and in the 1953-2003 period it only grew by 5 million (from a population of nearly 6 million).
 
Or alternatively Communist Cuba looks more towards Mao's policies and adopts their earlier "everyone have as many children as possible" policy (admittedly an unlikely scenario).

"The absurd argument of bourgeois Western economists like Malthus that increases in food cannot keep up with increases in population was not only refuted long ago by Marxists, but has also been completely exploded by the realities in the Soviet Union and the liberated areas of China after the revolution.”

The downside is that despite what Mao claimed, Cuba cannot support that many people and the whole country would be entirely dependent on food imports from the Soviet Union.

Well, if it kept Communist economics, sure. The irony of Mao's statement is that capitalist farmers (admittedly with some government-backed tech input and support) have done a lot more to make Malthus look dumb than Communism ones...

Re the original question, an earlier development of tropical medicine might have boosted population growth before the demographic transition. As to whether they could feed themselves, I dunno: if Cuba had Haiti's population density it would have over 37 million, but then Haiti is notoriously advanced in the process of destroying it's topsoil through overcultivation - but on the next tentacle, Haiti's agricultural productivity per acre farmed is probably less than more advanced nations.

Bruce
 

NothingNow

Banned
Re the original question, an earlier development of tropical medicine might have boosted population growth before the demographic transition. As to whether they could feed themselves, I dunno: if Cuba had Haiti's population density it would have over 37 million, but then Haiti is notoriously advanced in the process of destroying it's topsoil through overcultivation - but on the next tentacle, Haiti's agricultural productivity per acre farmed is probably less than more advanced nations.

Most of Cuba's very poorly suited for that level of urbanization, or super-intense farming like you see in parts of the US. It's hilariously rugged over large parts of the island, So you'd see Havana and Santiago de Cuba with densities comparable to Tokyo or Hong Kong before you got close to hitting 30 million people.

I could honestly see somewhere in the low twenties, if Tropical disease were tackled early enough for American Expats to seriously consider it a major option, and it could avoid the violence and economic troubles that came with the Ten Years' War, Little War, and Cuban War of Independence IOTL. Even then, under those positively ideal circumstances, thirty million people is asking for a bit much.
 
Cuba could experience the Florida effect where all of the old retiring people from the North go to retire, look at the population change from 1940-2000 Florida and compare that to the rest of the Union. :O

Exactly.

Not to mention that Cuba joining in 1898 means (unless butterflies have us annex somewhere else, too) the US space program will be based there, rather than in Florida. So that’s easily another million or two people.
 
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