Previous books on growth management in the United States favor balanced growth, which suggests that growth and environmental protection represent equally legitimate objectives. Taking issue with the balanced growth position, this book argues that further growth is unsustainable and that growth management must focus on ensuring ecological sustainability. The book opens with the arguments supporting current global limits to growth, and then shows that the growth management movement in the United States represents an institutionalized form of ongoing growth accommodation, which is incongruous with sustainable behavior.

The book also documents the historical pro-growth tendency of the planning profession and contends that this bias is impeding the necessary transition to a sustainable future. In addition, it presents the standards courts use to decide the legality of growth management programs and suggests that those standards do not present insurmountable obstacles to stopping future growth. In conclusion, this book presents operational measures of ecological sustainability and argues that the growth imperative currently driving the growth management movement must be replaced by the imperative of ecological sustainability.

More than two decades of mounting evidence confirms that the existing scale of the human enterprise has surpassed global ecological limits to growth. Based on such limits, The No-Growth Imperative discounts current efforts to maintain growth through eco-efficiency initiatives and smart-growth programs, and argues that growth is inherently unsustainable and that the true nature of the challenge confronting us now is one of replacing the current growth imperative with a no-growth imperative. Gabor Zovanyi asserts that anything less than stopping growth would merely slow today's dramatic degradation and destruction of ecosystems and their critical life-support services. Zovanyi makes the case that local communities must take action to stop their unsustainable demographic, economic, and urban increases, as an essential prerequisite to the realization of sustainable states. The book presents rationales and legally defensible strategies for stopping growth in local jurisdictions, and portrays the viability of no-growth communities by outlining their likely economic, social, political, and physical features. It will serve as a resource for those interested in shifting the focus of planning from growth accommodation to the creation of stable, sustainable communities. While conceding the challenges associated with transforming communities into no-growth entities, Zovanyi concludes by presenting evidence that suggests that prospects for realizing states of no growth are greater than might be assumed.

More than two decades of mounting evidence confirms that the existing scale of the human enterprise has surpassed global ecological limits to growth. Based on such limits, The No-Growth Imperative discounts current efforts to maintain growth through eco-efficiency initiatives and smart-growth programs, and argues that growth is inherently unsustainable and that the true nature of the challenge confronting us now is one of replacing the current growth imperative with a no-growth imperative. Gabor Zovanyi asserts that anything less than stopping growth would merely slow today's dramatic degradation and destruction of ecosystems and their critical life-support services. Zovanyi makes the case that local communities must take action to stop their unsustainable demographic, economic, and urban increases, as an essential prerequisite to the realization of sustainable states. The book presents rationales and legally defensible strategies for stopping growth in local jurisdictions, and portrays the viability of no-growth communities by outlining their likely economic, social, political, and physical features. It will serve as a resource for those interested in shifting the focus of planning from growth accommodation to the creation of stable, sustainable communities. While conceding the challenges associated with transforming communities into no-growth entities, Zovanyi concludes by presenting evidence that suggests that prospects for realizing states of no growth are greater than might be assumed.

Previous books on growth management in the United States favor balanced growth, which suggests that growth and environmental protection represent equally legitimate objectives. Taking issue with the balanced growth position, this book argues that further growth is unsustainable and that growth management must focus on ensuring ecological sustainability. The book opens with the arguments supporting current global limits to growth, and then shows that the growth management movement in the United States represents an institutionalized form of ongoing growth accommodation, which is incongruous with sustainable behavior. The book also documents the historical pro-growth tendency of the planning profession and contends that this bias is impeding the necessary transition to a sustainable future. In addition, it presents the standards courts use to decide the legality of growth management programs and suggests that those standards do not present insurmountable obstacles to stopping future growth. In conclusion, this book presents operational measures of ecological sustainability and argues that the growth imperative currently driving the growth management movement must be replaced by the imperative of ecological sustainability.