There’s What They Tell Us – And What They Don’t Tell Us
by Donella Meadows
— September 9, 1999 —
What they tell us: The income tax is unfair. The top one percent of income earners pay one-third of all income tax.
What they don’t tell us: The reason the top one percent pay so much of the income tax is that they have so much of the income. The richest 2.7 million Americans — [...]
Social Security Is No Problem, Unless We Make It One
by Donella Meadows
— April 7, 1999 —
Overshadowed by the agony of Kosovo, outshouted by the Dow crossing ten thousand, a surprising news item appeared on page 6 or 15 or so of most American newspapers last week. Social Security has received a stay of execution. Instead of going into the red in 2032, it may survive till 2040 or 2050. [...]
So What Can We Do – Really Do – About Sprawl?
by Donella Meadows
— March 11, 1999 —
In my mind St. Louis is the poster city for sprawl. It has a glittering, high-rise center where fashionable people work, shop and party. Surrounding the center are blocks and blocks of empty lots, abandoned buildings, dying stores, a sad wasteland through which the fashionable people speed on wide highways to the suburbs. In [...]
If We Don’t Like Sprawl, Why Do We Go On Sprawling?
by Donella Meadows
— March 4, 1999 —
We have planning boards. We have zoning regulations. We have urban growth boundaries and “smart growth” and sprawl conferences. And we still have sprawl. Between 1970 and 1990 the population of Chicago grew by four percent; its developed land area grew by 46 percent. Over the same period Los Angeles swelled 45 percent in [...]
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 [...]
