The headline on Page One of The Oregonian said it all: "Portland gridlock creeping back, and that's good news." The point? The return of bad traffic signals economic growth. And growth is good news, regardless of the consequences. 

During these days of economic gloom, growth is especially good news. A hundred and seventy-five new NOAA jobs in Newport? Hooray! A new plan for vastly expanding Portland's urban growth boundary? Fabulous! Boeing plans for a $120 million investment and 152 new jobs in Gresham? Yippee! 

The boosterism is understandable. In the short term, growth supports families, relieves social pressures that produce conflict and crime, pays for amenities such as the arts, offers opportunities for entrepreneurs and makes some of us exceedingly wealthy. 

But growth is also an addiction. And, like most addictions, it threatens to destroy us. Not only does it clog our freeways, but it also paves farmland, wipes out open spaces, saddles taxpayers with ruinous development costs and crushes the quality of life that attracted us to our communities in the first place. Growth sucks irreplaceable resources out of the earth. It dumps poisonous pollution into our environment. It crowds out the planet's other species and utterly fails to deliver the human happiness it promises.