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Region's growth problem only getting larger
Growth can be a good thing, if it is sustainable
Report sets room for improvement in MD’s smart growth plan
The recent Bay Journal pieces on economic growth in the Chesapeake region give us a lot to think about. Tom Horton, in particular, provides alarming information about growth and raises the question, why aren't more of us more alarmed? I am alarmed, and I hope that the Bay Journal is able to start a conversation about growth that ultimately includes those representing the public interest in government.
Before this conversation gets too far along, it would be best to address some fundamental terms.
Growth is what happens when you figure out how to make more with less. If farmers figure out how to squeeze more production out of an acre of land-and, if that increased production pays for itself-that means we can get the same amount of food for less money. That generates growth.
Growth is also what happens when a young person enters the workforce and starts generating value and income. In the absence of growth, a young person entering the workforce would have to wait until somebody already in the workforce dropped out.
Growth is also what happens when a supertanker runs aground in Prince William Sound. Most of us will remember the Exxon Valdez accident that spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prudoe Bay in 1989. A tremendous amount of effort and resource went into trying to remediate the environmental harm of that oil spill, and all that spending boosted the local, and probably the national, economy.
If you are thinking that it is pretty weird to have the same term describe something as innocuous as a young person entering the workforce and an environmental disaster such as the Exxon Valdez, that's good. It is pretty weird.
But it is also the fact of the matter-and the problem. When one argues against growth, one is arguing against some very reasonable as well as some very undesirable things. Because the word "growth" has so many ramifications, those opposed to growth and those in favor of growth could argue forever without getting anywhere useful.
To be liked or disliked, growth needs a modifier, as in "sustainable" growth versus "unsustainable" growth. When we talk about sustainable and unsustainable growth, we are taking a longer and more specific view. We can see all around us the toll that 300 years of Western Civilization has taken on the mid-Atlantic environment. We drill deeper for good water and the Bay delivers less product and less recreation than it could. Than it used to. These are the longer-term costs of practices that, in the short-run, looked like fine growth.
Failing to account for longer-term environmental sustainability is what has gotten us into this situation. Incorporating long-term sustainability into what we do all day-our economy-is what will be needed to fix it.
I read that the Iroquois Confederacy had a rule for their chiefs that they had to consider the effects of their choices on the seventh generation yet to come. These were heathens, mind you, but they may have been on to something. If we assume seven generations to be about 140 years, that is a much longer planning horizon than any of our present day chiefs deal with, barring the nuclear and toxic waste industries.
Ignoring long-term environmental sustainability has allowed us to live higher on the hog than we would have been able to do if we had been sensitive to it.
The costs have been pushed into the future, onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. Therefore, it is a pretty good bet that fixing this will entail some short-term losses in economic welfare. Voters don't generally take to plans that require short-term losses in economic welfare, so we should recognize that this is going to be a very hard sell.
But we shouldn't obscure things by making "growth" something other than it is. That will not help our cause.
We should instead start developing the tools that will allow us to know what is sustainable over the long term and what is not. Then we can start developing rules that spread the pain equitably, and which limit only "bad" growth, and not "good" growth.
