4. Development

If you were to look up the definition of development it would probably be along the lines of ‘process and progression’. Parts of the world have been driving up the highway for decades now, and will soon be taking flight. Development continues, no doubt about it, at an accelerated, unprecedented pace. You catch your breath, and before you know it, there’s another supermarket or skyscraper next door. Whatever form or size of development that may be, it is consistently taking place. Fundamental, basic services; civic amenities such as the water supply, electricity, sewage disposal, roads, and hospitals are all essential to our living. From the availability, affordability, and distribution of gas cylinders and gas lines to household heating and cooling – There is a rainbow of functionalities that run in the background to assist families, schools, offices, and homes. Either taking the bus, metro, car sharing, or personal automobile or bicycle we commute because of development. The roads we travel, the traffic lights that maintain order and avert pandemonium, to the bakery down the road who sells fresh hot bread and buns round the clock. But let’s look back at the words ‘development is consistently taking place’. What is the quality of that development? Considerable credit can be given to the kind of people societies are made up of. Kuwaiti sheiks built oil refineries and desalination plants, proving that they weren’t only nomads living in a desert. In the harshest of climates, you see hardy sunflowers blooming with the backdrop of a busy city. Therefore, it is us the people. We grow up to be the politicians, contractors, and mayors. The development we see, is probably the development that was sowed through the leaders we believed and re-elected. Roads and transportation; connectivity and the consistency of a people equate to the development we see burgeoning and splitting in half around us. Social, emotional, intellectual/cognitive, and physical/child development influence one another as does our infrastructural development. Institutional stagnation hampers infrastructural development, which consequently manifests itself into affecting social development. We the people for regression and progression. It’s not that we should be pessimists. That’s far from the point. But what we find are hazardous, unfinished bridges and repeatedly re-tarmacked patchwork roads. For the town council to build a recreational playground and jogging path, only to have it smashed and vandalised by citizens under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The state and quality of the civic and infrastructural development we see, is about us the people.