Development?

I took this photo this morning of our incoming new neighbors. Tearing down beautiful healthy trees in the name of development, the other kind of development, the development that we as development practitioners are quick to judge as negative, as environmental poachers. But then I started thinking is our development of increasing the choices people have that much different than the development of constructing buildings? Are we not just as responsible for the destruction of the earth with our attempts to build new schools, hospitals, and other socially responsible buildings? Grant it what development practitioners do is not for the gains of profit and this new motel coming in is for profits, but when you look at it, it is providing a need, a service. I know we can build green now, but does it really make much of a difference? Shouldn't we be re-doing the buildings already in place, at least whenever possible? Who says we always have to build new? 

Consumers. We as shoppers are quick to say we want something new. We negatively label refurbished as used, unwanted. We want a motel thats new, not one thats been around and re-modeled. We want new clothes, not those discarded by someone else. A new car, new electronics, new new new. While the used is torn down or thrown out. Though we can't all always afford the new, there are plenty of people who can, contributing to the massive amounts of garbage this world accumulates. We clear land on the one side and pile up junk on the other. 

There are so many uses of the word development...pictures, idea, people, buildings, land, etc. But they all boil down to the creating of something new, of advancing. I just hope that one day the idea of creating something new from something old becomes more widespread and is stripped of its negative connotations. As they say someone else's trash is another's treasure. 

I wonder what these trees will be made into...