Originally Posted by
Seika
Earth was an overcrowded shithole (at least in the poorer countries), but space tech and colonial wealth were changing that well beyond the simple export of a few hundred million people. Environmental mismanagement was being repaired, gen-eng was massively improving quality of life, and mass-effect fields' use in architecture meant cities could give the same number of people twice as much living space.
Remember, ME was conceived in the vein of optimistic, romantic sci-fi serials. You're always the hero, no matter if that's Dirty Harry or Galahad. Even as other things faded and changed, the background details of the setting tended to keep reflecting that (pre-)ME1 vision.