Assess the positive and negative impacts of rapid development on either a named developing or emerging country.

India
Rapid development has led to both positive and negative social, economic and environmental impacts in India. Rapid development has led to improved health care which has positive social impacts in the form of increased life expectancy and decreased death rates, highlighted by the increase in life expectancy from 38 to 68 within a generation in India. Furthermore, rapid development has positive social benefits as provision of education improves which raises literacy rates. However, decreasing death rates and increasing life expectancy can result in rapid population growth which can cause stress on housing provision and healthcare services. Positive economic impacts for both individuals and a country as a whole result from rapid development. Individuals may benefit from increased GDP per capita and economic growth is more attainable for a country when the working population is larger due to population growth and healthier due to healthcare improvements. The more a country develops the more attractive they become to FDI which further supports economic growth, such as in India where TNCs such as Toyota and Hyundai have started to manufacture cars. Such benefits however are often only experienced by certain people in urban areas which can result in increasing income inequality and disparities between rural and urban areas. Positive environmental impacts include the development and availability of new technologies which improve efficiency and sustainability of farming techniques. This reduces processes such as overgrazing and overcultivation thereby positively benefitting the environment. Rapid development however is associated with over-extraction of natural resources which leads to irreversible damage of land restricting future use such as in Kerela, India where a soft drink bottling plant was shut down due to contaminating water supplies. Furthermore, negative environmental impacts may be the result of environmental sustainability being sacrificed for economic growth. While unsustainable the extraction of non-renewable resources can lead to short term economic boosts.