Defining Development

An innovation in the field of technology is what determines development today. A nation is said to be developed if it has succeeded in curbing the village culture and walking on the way towards urbanization, building concrete cities with a huge density of people per square kilometer. History shows that the original settlements that grew into cities were usually built as trading centers or as forts to defend strategic locations. For this reason, most major cities are on rivers or harbors, or at the junction of important overland routes. Mumbai is a good example of this.

Development of science and technology has no doubt improved living conditions. There is a huge decline in death rates, and the life expectancy has increased considerably. But this definition of development comes with its own set of problems. Problems of population and pollution. The developing world is heading towards an uncontrollable growth of metro cities in upcoming years. When it comes to metro cities let us consider Mumbai as we are familiar with its growth and its problems. This is a land of dreams for most Indians. Mumbai is India’s financial capital, and one of the richest cities in the world. It is ranked the seventh best city in the world for number of millionaires. Mumbai hopes to become the world’s new Shanghai, and is predicted to become the world’s second largest urban conglomeration after only Tokyo by 2025. However, there is another side to Mumbai. It has Asia’s largest slum in which 55% of Mumbai’s population lives. A slum is a major part of any metropolitan city in India. It is a part of the development process associated with each growing city. If the belief that urbanization makes life better is true, slums do not fall in this category, though they constitute more than 50% of the urban population.

Slums are places with very poor quality of living conditions. Survival is the only aim and the daily struggle of people who live here. These areas are definitely insanitary. This gives rise to a number of water born diseases every single day. Here disasters like floods during monsoons or fire otherwise are common. Living space is cramped – there are 1 million people packed into one square mile. Privacy is almost absent. It is not unusual to see things like children playing around toxic sludge or their parents rooting among the rubbish for things to reuse or eat. There are astonishing statistics which represent the intensity of these problems. Hence when it comes to poor cities, bigger is by no means always better. Rapid economic growth brings substantial problems of its own -- notably increased pollution. Already, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China, which is arguably undergoing the most rapid industrial and economic transformation the world has ever seen.

It is time we change our definition of development. Technology alone cannot guarantee better living conditions for all at least in a developing country like India. More than half of the existing population is struggling to survive on a daily basis to make the life of the other half easy and comfortable. This attitude cannot be labeled as growth or advancement. There is a need for development which is all inclusive.