Induced Consumption
Also known as: Jevons Paradox, Wirth's Law
We increase capacity to solve bottlenecks, but this often just changes behavior to cause the problem to return.
Links
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How highways make traffic worse
A visualization showing how increased highway capacity in Katy, Texas did not reduce congestion.
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Jevons Paradox
the Jevons paradox occurs when technological advancements make a resource more efficient to use (thereby reducing the amount needed for a single application); however, as the cost of using the resource drops, if the price is highly elastic, this results in overall demand increasing, causing total resource consumption to rise.
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Wirth’s Law
Wirth’s law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster.
Examples
If we widen a congested road, this might just cause more people to drive rather than take public transportation, thus bringing congestion levels right back to where they were before. Put another way: an ad hoc solution (taking public transportation) might have sprung up for a problem (a congested road). Solving the problem might undo the solution.
Rising personal income usually results in rising lifestyle expenditures – when we make more, we spend more, and thus we don’t feel any richer than we did before.