Would you tell me if this sentence is okay? I think overdevelopment is a road to ruining our cities. Continuing to build large, poor quality developments with little regard to public space has taken it's toll on the resident's quality of life. I think overdevelopment is a way to ruin our city. Continuing to build large, poor quality developments with little regard to public space have taken their toll on the resident's quality of life. I think overdevelopment is a/the road to ruin our city. Continuing to build large, poor quality developments with little regard to public space have taken their toll on the resident's quality of life. I think the overdevelopment of our city is a road to ruin. Continuing to build large, poor quality developments with little regard to public space have taken their toll on the resident's quality of life and health. Thank you The fourth way is the way I would choose to write the sentence, that doesn't mean it is the only way or the only correct way. [ also I am a little undecided about 'is a road to ruin our city' VERSUS 'is a road to ruining our city'. ] Ruin is both a verb and a noun. Which s going to start a grammar debate. What is it? in the sentences where I did not use ruining, which I do automatically because of early years school training You could also use the word ruination as well as ruining. Quality of life includes HEALTH

Not really! I just selected one of John's sentences and replaced it with mine! I guess the verb ''ruin'' is the one that should be corrected! Am I right?

No, if you are talking about your own city, then that's fine. though a better word to use is "my community". there was one more problem with gerunds after prepositions. Did you manage to find that??

Thank you for your comment, Matthew. Yes it's a mind map for IELTS preparation and I had prepared for speaking part(the one that deal with the issues of your hometown. do you suggest use cities instead of city in this case?

Dear Farhad, I think it depends on where the sentence is going to be and I guess this is a sentence that you have written in an IELTS essay. That's just a guess of course. But if that's the case I think you're doing a good job. The only thing that I think you should should be more careful about is using gerunds after prepositions. and and I think, again if this is a sentence in an IELTS essay, the word city should be pluralized here.