The world now is a malthusian horror for billions now.
There is more to life than caloric intake, I can't see how being crammed in with 32 billion people couldn't be a living hell. I've been to a lot of places, NYC, LA, Cairo, Mexico City, places where human life becomes worthless and people just step over dead bodies on the sidewalk. There is something about human nature that TL will never change, if you pack people in like rats, it becomes "This Phenomenal World."
You want that try Drahcir in the Kraxin subsector, Glimmerdrift Reaches. (E300A96-8). Here's how I described the system for play:
The system star is a type A (A3V) and the system has many heavier (and rare) elements, particularly radioactives, in abundance. Drachcir is next to a huge asteroid belt that occupies the next outward orbit (orbit 7). Inward, there are three large uninhabitable planets that are not currently being mined due to their surface temperatures. A few of the satellites around the system gas giants have mining tenaments that house prospectors and other free-lance mining interests.
Drahcir itself is basically a factory, well many factories. These are owned by various corporations and megacorporations. There they process ore into refined metals and produce other products like cement and high end ceramic powders.
Workers are housed and fed by their corporation. All of them work on contract either as 'free' or indentured labor. Food and other such needs are hauled in by ships coming to load ore or refined products for shipment out. There is no starport as such other than a miniscule "executive" one for small ships bringing in corporate vip's. What exists instead are essentially loading docks. Fuel is available for corporate ships only. Anything else has to refuel off a gas giant or try and make a deal with the small bands of independent prospectors /miners in the outer system for it or food and other necessities (good luck with that!).
Because Drahcir is a vacuum world there are zero pollution controls on anything. The smelters and other factories that produce aerial byproducts simply use a very tall smoke stack (or stacks) and let the off gassing and smoke trail into space. The result is that Drahcir from space looks like a glowing, smoldering fireball trailing a thick pall of smoke as it orbits the star.
Solid waste is simply hauled off or dumped in convienent locations on the planet. So, there are mountian sized slag heaps between factory and housing sites everywhere.
The only transport on Drahcir is a series of rail systems that carry workers between sites and transport materials to and from the loading docks. Worker movement is moderately controlled and requires an identity card etc., to move virtually anywhere.
The system is fairly busy with space traffic. There are a number of large ore ships moving from the belt to Drahcir and back hauling raw materials. Smaller ships move in the belt gathering raw ore. The independents likewise are mining ore or moving back to one of the gas giant's satellites. A few large tankers operate between the gas giants and Drahcir hauling refined fuel from corporate mobile refining ships to the planet or to corporate ships in the system.
A bureaucracy set up by the various corporations runs all the common services and performs things like law enforcement. That way no one corporation can take advantage of the others. One of their tasks is to prevent workers on contract absconding before they fulfill their term or pay off their corporate debts in full.
