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 [...]
Dear Folks: February 21, 1999
Dear Folks,
My mom complained that I used two unfamilar words in my last letter, so I just looked back to see what they were. I guess “entropy” and “Enneagram” are the most likely candidates. Sorry about that. Let me explain.
Entropy is a word physicists use to refer to the tendency of the universe to fall into disorder. If you pour [...]
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 [...]
