I think all of the above comments hint at this but don't state this explicitly: One of the general problems with growth is that it always and necessarily plate

I think all of the above comments hint at this but don't state this explicitly: One of the general problems with growth is that it always and necessarily plateaus, and the growth stage has different dynamics compared to the plateau stage. When your town/business/country is growing it is easy to leverage the future because there is more wealth to spare. In the growth period, investing in a new park/office space/spending program is totally rational if it helps improve growth and quality of life now, given that repaying that debt will be easy later. But once growth slows down, our expectations of progress must also wane. This is hard for many people to accept because they think that past growth was paid for with past success, when the reality is that it was paid for with current success.