Too many people

 In 1947, the Gallup poll asked "Do you think this town [city] would be better off or worse off if more people lived here?"  31% said better off, 46% worse off, 9% the same, 5% that it depended on the type of people, and 10% weren't sure.  There was a parallel question about your state:  for this, it was 40% better off, 27% worse, 14% the same, and 20% no opinion.  So people were more positive about having more people in their state than in their town.  These questions were asked to a randomly selected half of the sample; the other half was asked "There are about 140 million people today in the United States. Do you think this country would be better off or worse off if there were more people living here?"  Only 16% said better off, with 56% saying worse off, 14% the same, 3% that it would depend, and 11% weren't sure.  That is, people were more negative about having more people in America than in their city or state.  Why?  One possibility is that 140 million sounds like a large number, so that mentioning it made people less inclined to say that we would benefit from having more.  But another possibility is that increases in the population of your town or state could involve people moving from other towns or states--an increase in the American population would have to involve immigration.*  

As far as group differences, people who lived in urban areas, more educated people, and people in New England and the Middle Atlantic states were more likely to say that a larger population would be good.  These qualities are all associated with "cosmopolitansim," supporting the idea that answers are related to attitudes towards immigration (the group differences for opinions about your city and state were generally smaller and had different patterns).**  However, negative opinions were more numerous than positive ones in every group.  There was little or no difference by party identification.  

This is one more piece of evidence for something I've mentioned before: Americans were not keen on allowing more immigration during the 1950s and 1960s--in 1964, when the restrictive 1924 law was still in force, more people favored reducing immigration than increasing it.  

*Over the long run, it could be natural increase, but people seem to think about the near future if the time frame isn't specified.  

**Most Gallup surveys asked about religion, but this one did not.

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]