Contemporary economic development and growth efforts in most communities often tend to make the regional areas poorer instead of better off. Isn't development and growth betterment for all, you ask? Well, sometimes not. There are always losers and winners in any economic development effort. The developers, real estate interests and other related businesses, known as the "Growth Machine," would like us to believe that growth brings progress. However this is often not the case. Growth is not always bad nor is it always good. Obviously if a community accepts a toxic industry that would create sickness and a bad odor in the air, it also accepts long range negative consequences in excess of the new jobs and money the plant would bring. The Growth Machine's adding of that new subdivision may actually increase the fire insurance rates for the entire community or require an expansion of the police department over and beyond the tax base the new subdivision would bring in. Balancing the positive and negative consequences in a realistic manner is an approach to planning that is often not fully considered. Does new housing carry with it financial impacts on community services and schools that exceeds the economic benefits of the development? What hidden costs are present that will be paid by the community collectively over future generations? The Growth Machine is not inclined to find negatives that would interfere with desired projects, and local citizens seldom understand the full range of possible socio-economic impacts. Professional planning departments often limit their evaluations to land use approval and positive economic benefits without evaluating all the potential negative consequences. Even "clean" development like retail stores and shopping malls can have long range negative consequences. If you approve a Walmart in your community what local businesses will be negatively impacted? Will the locally owned hardware store and retail shoe shop go out of business? Locally owned small business usually keep their profits in the community--recirculating the money. National retail chains treat communities like colonies. They only reason for their existence is to take money out of the community and return it to their corporate headquarter cities. This makes the community collectively poorer as profits are taken out of local circulation. Unfortunately, resisters to growth and development often based their efforts on a nostalgic approach to keeping the community uncrowded and retaining that small town feeling. This approach is usually overwhelmed with the rationale that growth bring jobs and money. Even environmentalists when opposing development on a sound regional protection basis find themselves at odds with trade unions and the power of the Growth Machine, and can end up compromising environmental concerns. What we need is a comprehensive socio-economic environmental evaluation of each and every development effort in a community. This will only be achieved if a watchdog group of citizens insists. The Growth Machine pays a lot of attention to local community politics and the composition of planning commissions. Developers, real estate interests and related industries are the principle funders of local city council and boards of supervisor's campaigns. Local citizens who care about the future of their communities must seek full assessments and evaluations of all the hidden costs for growth and development by not accepting the traditional simplistic rationale of jobs and money. Communities must ask the questions, will the growth and development project bring long term living-wage jobs to our community citizens or will it hire people at below poverty wages or attract outside people to move in to take the jobs it creates? Does the growth and development effort result in greater economic capital in the region or does money flow out of the community? Does the community benefit as a whole fiscally, environmentally, and socially or are their hidden long term negative consequences that are children will be paying? These questions must be asked if we are to treat growth and development as if people really matter. We can create jobs and positive growth by supporting local business and expanding within pre-determined social and geographic boundaries. We can and should put a collective human face on how we see the future of our communities. --Peter Phillips is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Project Censored at Sonoma State University in California. He can be reached at peter.phillips@sonoma.edu.