Is it correct to use with at the beginning of a sentence?
Here's an example sentence:
With the development of the economy, living standards improved.
To my eyes this looks unnatural; I would rewrite it thus:
Living standards have improved as a result of economic development.
I think it sounds better because, as I understand it, in English it is more natural to put the result at the beginning of the sentence, and then the contributing factors or background information after that. But I am not 100% sure.
Best Answer
There's nothing grammatically wrong with that construction. In fact it's quite common. It's an example of a dependent clause. You can use any subordinating conjunctions in this way.
However, I will agree that it sounds a bit odd for other reasons. The development of the economy speaks of the development almost as if it was a single event. Personally, I'd write it like this: