Development FTW?

Readapting to being in your home country again on holiday is a slow, torturous process involving progress, setbacks, withdrawal symptoms and overcoming dependence. And that's just for my parents. As I leave behind the last of the drowsiness and realise it's 3 in the afternoon, I realise how much of a pain I've been to my family, who've rebuilt their schedule around NOT having to babysit me 24-7. Oh well, I'm only here for two more weeks.

Penang hasn't changed, despite the new politicians in charge, the church arsonry in KL, and the fact that I've been away from it all for so long. Part of me demands an explanation why the island hasn't fallen apart without my leadership, but the rest of me knows that I'm not actually Batman despite whatever childhood fantasies I may have had.

But despite the apparent similarities, Penang has changed for me - the good shops aren't where I remember anymore, I'm still not used to to now-massive (and soulless) Gurney Plaza, and they're renovating the shops at the bottom of the hill. In fact, they seem to be tearing down everything. Housing complexes are growing like mushrooms on the Batu Feringghi hills, as well as pretty much everywhere else in the state. Marinas stick into the sea like pseudopodia. Penang is multiplying, and sooner or later I swear the island is going to split in two to accomodate the population.

Which begs the question, when people talk about development, what do they really mean? For the businessmen development means new roads, new factories, new workplaces. But speak to the everymen and their answers differ. They want an end to the traffic jams, the dirty streets. The youth want more (but cheaper) nightlife and shopping complexes. In uni I learned that development wasn't just about building things - it was about providing opportunities to people. Things like having an art gallery for artists, or better schools for children. Penang, however, disagrees with me - everywhere I go, I realise just how lacking the island is in public, government-provided amenities.

In Leicester, there are two massive parks within 20 minutes walk of my house. Public toilets are fairly common. There's a museum in New Walk, a public footpath which has little gardens built into it. Even some of the shops (the co-operative) are publicly owned, and the hospital has a really decent cafeteria which gives you good value for money. If you're broke or intend not to splurge any money, you can spend your time in a field just enjoying nature or playing frisbee, or pop into the free museum to dabble in a bit of culture. There are so many free art galleries and museums in the London city centre that you can spend more than a week exploring them. Penang is rather different. Our public amenities seem to be places where builders haven't reached, like Penang Hill, or Keracut (although i'm sure they're trying). Even the public beaches seem are the ones which they can't build hotels around. How many public places are there in town? Along any one street, how many buildings can you casually walk into without intending to spend money? Government amenities simply don't seem to exist, or are aimed to serve certain groups in particular (such as businessmen) instead of the public.

I'm not aware of how we intend to address this, or even whether we intend to. But something feels wrong about where we're heading, and the least we could do is to stop calling it development.