Is GDP the Right Measure of Wealth and Well-Being?

[Marcus Bryant]

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/meyer-kirby/2011/03/wealth-and-well-being-the-lega.html

[Spurminator]

Good read.

[Winehole23]

At the end of The Economy of Cities (her favorite among her books), Jane Jacobs said if a flying saucer came to Earth she'd want to know how they avoided stagnation. The main battle in any society, said Jacobs, is not between rich and poor or owners and labor but between those who benefit from the status quo and those who benefit from new ways of doing things. The status quo usually wins, no surprise. And the status quo tends to become more powerful over time, which is why Jacobs didn't know if profound stagnation could be avoided as a kind of terminal state. When she wrote The Economy of Cities (published 1969), she saw stagnation mounting in the American economy - in transportation, for example. By stagnation she didn't mean lack of growth; she meant lack of useful innovation (http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/creativity), causing problems to stack up unsolved. If you keep doing the same things, but more intensely, you will grow in conventional economic terms (e.g., GDP) but you aren't solving your problems.http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/personal-science/201103/the-great-stagnation-part-1

[Marcus Bryant]

"I hate the government for making my life absurd," she said in an interview with the journal Government Technology in 1998.

link (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/books/25cnd-jacobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2)


Sounds like an interesting gal.

[Winehole23]

Her books are good, too. Jane Jacobs deserves the iconoclast moniker -- neither of the major ideological camps knows quite what to do with her, even now.

[Marcus Bryant]

In theory...you develop your own thoughts on the matters of the day instead of waiting for the memo from HQ.

[Marcus Bryant]

We have been bestowed this splendid freedom of conscience, and we spend our time thinking and talking about shit.

[Marcus Bryant]

In an interview in Azure magazine in 1997, Ms. Jacobs recounted her habit of carrying on imaginary conversations with Thomas Jefferson while running errands. When she could think of nothing more to tell Jefferson, she replaced him with Benjamin Franklin.

"Like Jefferson, he was interested in lofty things, but also in nitty-gritty, down-to-earth details," she said, "such as why the alley we were walking through wasn't paved, and who would pave it if it were paved. He was interested in everything, so he was a very satisfying companion."

[Marcus Bryant]

While working fulltime, Ms. Jacobs attended Columbia University's School of General Studies for two years and took courses in geology, zoology, law, political science and economics.

[Marcus Bryant]

In 1952, Ms. Jacobs got a job as an editor at Architectural Forum, where she stayed 10 years. This gave her a perch from which to observe urban renewal projects. In a visit to Philadelphia, she noticed that the streets of a project were deserted while an older, nearby street was crowded.

"So, I got very suspicious of this whole thing," she said in an interview with The Toronto Star in 1997. "I pointed that out to the designer, but it was absolutely uninteresting to him. How things worked didn't interest him.

"He wasn't concerned about its attractiveness to people. His notion was totally esthetic, divorced from everything else."

[Marcus Bryant]

The community must fit the design instead of the design fitting the community, if there's a design at all.

[Marcus Bryant]

For such a 'free country' we're expected to fit into many things often.

[RandomGuy]

Her books are good, too. Jane Jacobs deserves the iconoclast moniker -- neither of the major ideological camps knows quite what to do with her, even now.

Sounds like my kinda gal.

[DarrinS]

I like that website, http://www.prosperity.com/

I like their system of ranking prosperity.


Take the US, for example (we rank 10th overall)

http://www.prosperity.com/country.aspx?id=US


Interestingly, we are ranked 1st in HEALTH.


You can compare the US vs. Norway (ranked 1st). We mostly differ in the category of "Safety and Security". Norway ranked 2nd, we ranked 25th.