Abstract

Spill-Over: The Costs of Growth

Over the past two decades the physical environment in which they dwell has been sinking rapidly into a welter of disamenities, yet none of the U.S. political leaders can bear to raise his eyes from the indices of gross national product to remark the painful event. But skepticism about the connection between economic growth and the growth of social welfare is not enough. The city as a center point of civilization, as a place of life and gaiety, is becoming a thing of the past. The overall response of governments since the war has been to do little more than make stern noises about efficiency while allowing, nay encouraging, the use of the nation's limited resources to install more plant to produce more cars, trucks and scooters that show a profit to their makers, and a gain to their users, while steadfastly ignoring the mounting costs of traffic control and the barely tolerable pressure of noise, stench, dirt and exasperation, to say nothing of the increasing death and mutilation.