AP PHOTO/REED SAXON
Might a different external environment — a different sort of city, that
is — have stopped their growth?
In tackling these questions,
the beachfront enclave of less
than 100,000 joined a global
debate just making its way to
America. Countries around the
world have begun worrying
about how their people feel, not
just how much they produce.
The tiny Himalayan kingdom
of Bhutan even has a measure-
ment for it: the Gross National
Happiness (GNH). Coined in the
1970s by a Bhutanese king wanting to ease fears about modernization, the concept now rules
that country’s politics.
It’s also spreading westward,
where some top economists making sense of the recession are
happy to knock down the old gods
— profit, loss, GDP, GNP — and
replace them with a new one.
A wave of teen fatalities including the hotel-top suicide made officials in Santa Monica, California,
re-assess the way they run things.
A sidewalk
memorial
stands near
the spot
where a
14-yearold student
athlete
jumped to his
death in 2011.