For the Failed Future Forecast, the author seemed to think that increasing populations of people would not move out to new communities. In the United States for instance, there are now numerous major cities in the 2020s that either did not exist in the 1960s or were just small rural communities at the time and have grown into metropolises. If 344 million people WERE pressed into a handful of cities, then yes it might create the Judge Dredd -like Megacity squalor we see in the novel.
For the Failed Future Forecast, the author seemed to think that increasing populations of people would not move out to new communities. In the United States for instance, there are now numerous major cities in the 2020s that either did not exist in the 1960s or were just small rural communities at the time and have grown into metropolises. If 344 million people WERE pressed into a handful of cities, then yes it might create the Judge Dredd -like Megacity squalor we see in the novel.