"Rethinking economic growth" with Eveline van Leeuwen, Scientific Director at AMS Institute

Eveline van Leeuwen takes the LSE stage to share her insights on new ways to conceptualize and measure economic growth in a meaningful way (i.e., measuring what matters) that is clear (through a moderate number of indicators) and appropriate for the right spatial scale? Economic growth has been the dominant narrative since the development of GDP after World War II. It not only became the main measuring tool but also the 'solution for everything': from poverty and unemployment to environmental destruction, climate change, and financial instability (Daly, 2019). However, economic growth should not be an end in itself but rather a means to achieve sustainable cities and regions. How can we design post-growth cities and regions? Many scientists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, have argued that society and the field of economics need a different compass than GDP (Hoekstra, 2019). Alternative economic models have been proposed, such as Doughnut Economics, Sustainable Development Goals, Steady State Economics, Economics of Arrival, and De-growth (D’Alessandro et al., 2020). These models share a fundamental value: they distinguish between present wellbeing, future wellbeing (sustainability), and the distribution of wellbeing within and between countries (inclusion). At the AMS Institute, we began by asking what truly matters for the city of Amsterdam and how we can measure it. Based on 30 years of coalition agreements, we distilled seven Ideals for the city of Amsterdam: Equal opportunities, freedom and open-mindedness; progress and creativity; within planetary boundaries; good governance; collective city; safe and healthy. We evaluated and mapped over 1100 indicators to determine how well the city's monitoring activities align with these Ideals. Indicators previously associated only with safety are now also connected to ideals such as equal opportunities. The new links between data points and indicators reveal how policy objectives relate to each other, helping identify synergies and potential overlaps for municipal projects. For instance, subsidies for solar panels in lower-income areas can contribute to the energy transition, lower energy costs, and more equitable benefits for the population. Moreover, this approach helps the municipality identify counteracting forces, such as the trade-off between increasing green spaces in the city and the need for housing development. Learn more at https://www.lse.ac.uk/canada-blanch/e... #sustainability #sustainableliving #cities #lse #event #economicgeography #urbanisation #urbandevelopment #economicgrowth #doughnuteconomics #economics