There's no good reason to assume that these two are linked. Taking my last 45 years in the Salt Lake Valley as a model, we have had steady and sometimes explosive growth and in lock step, reductions in the quality of life on many metrics. Innovation that reduced both the pollution and usage of per-capita energy have prevented far greater degradation of quality of life considerations here but the sheer quantity of development, the disappearance of open space, wild space, access to surrounding mountains and recreational opportunities, crowding of amenities, overtaxing of water resources are beyond dispute.

This same degradation has occurred across the intermountain west, and I feel sorry for young people coming behind me who will never experience the clean, wild, untrammeled contry that I found here decades ago. Our valley and the surrounding lands would be healthier and far more pleasurable to live in with half the population, tragically they will see double that number in the next 30 years, a fact with NO upside.