runaway growth
Spiraling beyond control
Runaway growth is expansion that accelerates beyond control or sustainable limits.
The term appears in discussions of economics, biology, and technology: runaway growth in housing prices, runaway growth of cancer cells.
The image is of something that has broken free of restraints and gained dangerous momentum, feeding on itself rather than responding to normal checks.
- exponentialIncreasing by constant ratio
- hockey stickCurved implement for ice sports
- uncheckedNot controlled or limited
- out of controlUnable to be restrained
- spiralCurve winding around center
snowball · snowball effect · chain reaction · wildfire · wildfire spread · metastasis · explosion · population explosion · proliferation · surge · balloon · bubble economy · mushroom · cascade · sprawl · tumor · epidemic · inflation
runaway growthsteady growth
Sustained incremental increase
sustainable growth · slow growth · organic growth · stagnation · equilibrium
runaway growthdecline
Decrease or refuse
contraction · shrinkage · stagnation · recession · negative growth
away, running, runner, runners, runny, overrun, grow, grows, grown