Urban Growth Means Lower Taxes – And Other Myths
by Donella Meadows
— February 25, 1999 —
We need to bring in business to bring down taxes. This development will give us jobs. Environmental protection will hurt the economy. Growth is good for us.
If we’ve heard those arguments once, we’ve heard them a thousand times, stated with utmost certainty and without the slightest evidence. That’s because there is no evidence. Or [...]
Sprawl by Any Other Name Is Still Out of Control
by Donella Meadows
— February 18, 1999 —
This time around the hot term is “sprawl.” During previous outbreaks of concern about America’s spreading cities it was “strip development” or “slurbs” or simply “the growth problem.”
Whatever we call it, we worry about it toward the end of every economic boom and try to stimulate it again during every recession. We try to [...]
The Long Wave
By Donella Meadows
–This piece was published in Whole Earth, summer 1998.–
Dozens of people are eager to explain the collapse of the Asian Tiger economies. Few of them predicted it. Other economic implosions, from the 1995 failure of Britain’s venerable Barings Bank to the 1987 dive in the US stock market, have been explained primarily after the fact.
Similarly, the 1994 rise to [...]
The Real Costs of Growth in Oregon
By Donella Meadows
–June 5, 1997–
The myth persists. Growth is good for us. Development will bring in more tax money. The only way to get our property taxes down is to bring more people and houses and businesses to town.
If you’re one of the many who still believe this, look around at cities and towns more populous or more rapidly growing [...]
Feeling Our Feelings Might Not Be a Trivial Exercise
By Donella Meadows
–January 30, 1997–
Anyone who travels the world is bound to experience not only wonders but also crowds, poverty, pollution, ugliness and cruelty. Anyone who looks at the statistics can see population, factories and toxic wastes zooming up, while forests, soils, groundwaters and species plummet. I don’t think it’s possible to experience our planet, directly or indirectly, without a [...]
