“> Marcus
Usually, I write on Indiana’s lack of economic development. Others write about the environment and its limitations, as well as its destruction by economic development. Both the environment as well as the economy are treated like big lumps amorphous matter. They are too complex, too complicated, and too mysterious for understanding.
Let’s see if we can put the environment and the economy into a more understandable framework.
A tree that falls in the forest makes a sound regardless of whether anyone is present to hear it. The cost of a tree falling in the forest is unmeasured, as well as the unmeasured benefits that a tree rotting in a forest can bring. Although these benefits and costs may seem illogical to some people, they are real for the forest’s animals, plants, and micro-organisms.
A family picnics on the banks of the Eel River. This activity is part of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The trash and discharges of that picnic —- scattered in the air, on the land and in the river —- go largely unreported and most imperfectly quantified also as part of GDP.
Yet, there are a set of benefits, well-known but often neglected because we don’t have a way to measure them. These are both the benefits of use and contemplation. The pleasure realized by the picnickers is not —- or some would say, cannot be —- quantified. Knowing that such picnic spots exist is a distant benefit.
My father, who lived and died here, never visited the Statue of Liberty. He knew that the grand lady was there and enjoyed that fact. This is a passive benefit that developers often overlook.
Economic developments often take away the joy of passive usage. One example: money will be spent on the White River in Madison and Hamilton counties as part an economic development program. Who will decide how the funds are spent Are environmentalists allowed to sit on the committee making those decisions? Economic development might include a casino or amusement park being built in or on the river. The banks could have a narrow “natural” pathway with brooding multi-storied residential and commercial properties towering over that pathway.
This development is already being considered for the White River, which flows near the intersection with 96th St. & Allisonville Rd. Fishers meets Indianapolis and Carmel. I recommend driving through Fishers County, Carmel and Westfield. You’ll see acres of undifferentiated apartments, condos and cookie cutter commercial areas to serve their residents.
We are proud to say that such housing and other land uses are part of our economic development process. True development means more choices and less of the same.
Indiana’s typical economic developers, as well as subdivision builders and government agencies, don’t realize the truth espoused by environmental economist Herman Daly, “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse.”
