ABSTRACT
Space and place, geography and city, play significant tacit background roles in the creation of prosperity – both its possibility and its reality. However, prosperity does not express itself only in space. The hare route to prosperity entails dramatic consistent high growth. The tortoises include Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland. A subgroup of tortoises – Belgium, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, and Switzerland – benefited from exiting World War II with their economies relatively intact compared with many others. The tortoise path means that a handful of nations at the beginning of the nineteenth century or by the mid-nineteenth century were already relatively wealthy. All economies – hare and tortoise – undulate. Rates of growth and relative prosperity move up and down over time. This pattern though compares favorably with another more hair-raising kind of long-term undulation.
