Planning and Development of the Metropolitan Environment

In the past two decades we have become so preoccupied with the means of economic growth that we sometimes forget the ends of development. Too often we consider people as mere inputs in the development process.1 In the struggle to create new capacities&s; we often lose sight of the wider meaning of development: namely the creation of new qualities of life. Recently, however, the purists&s; economic approach has begun to change. Improving the human condition is more generally believed to be necessary for both a balanced and a sufficiently rapid economic growth. Nevertheless, as yet the crucial importance of the city as the essential environment in which economic capacities are created (or impeded) and the human qualities of life are enlarged (or frustrated) has not been widely realized. Development theory has not yet fully evaluated the city&s;s role as a major medium of development in our industrial society; nor has development theory recognized the city as the longneglected link in the many processes and activities of modern civilization and culture with which, for better or worse, we must deal.