This manuscript offers a critical understanding of 'development' in general and urban development planning in particular in India. Colonial urban planning kept influencing and shaping the development and future of cities. Independent India made a new beginning through strong belief in socialistic urban development and policy planning but it neglected the complex urban realities. Comprehensive-rational planning approach could not work well for socio-culturaly diverse urban places. Development seems have been exclusionary in practices due to which urban majority live in poor localities with...