A nation of traders and shoppers!

This nation is fast becoming a nation of traders. Yes, this is the impression the many small and big outlets of both brand products and near nameless goods that spring up in mushroom-style in the vicinity of your and my residences in the capital actually give. Residential areas are losing their characters faster than the speed of traffic in the city. What was a quiet and peaceful residential posh area or suburb only five years ago has suddenly transformed into a noisy place with unusually busy flow of traffic. The transformation of today far outstrips the slow change that occurred in areas like Dhanmondi. That particular residential area had only two-storey buildings for living. Even the residents abhorred the idea of renting their accommodation.
Now things have suddenly taken a break-neck pace with the owners of houses competing with each other for inviting more and more shops and other commercial establishments to their buildings. How they do so is clear from the details they print on the to-let board. The writings on those say that only for schools, offices or NGOs. Families are no longer in demand. Instead, the house owners serve notice on families to look for their accommodation elsewhere. Others have to go extra lengths for accommodating shops and other outlets. Sometimes the rooms within have to be redesigned or walls pulled down to make small compartments. But those fortunate few house owners on 'recently turned busy' roads or alleys go for dismantling area wall and readjust rooms inside in order to create accommodation for shops of all kinds.
Indeed commercial accommodation fetches more rents for house owners. Some even no longer look for renting their garage for car parking. Rather they would rent it to a small shop owner or homeopath practitioner. If that is tolerable, there are such obnoxious businesses like dealing in rejected paper and an array of utensils and plastic goods. Heaps of rejected goods are offloaded from vans or packed for transportation after thorough check and selection on the basis of their kinds and values. Scraps of papers, polythene and other material fly all around making the environment foul. Some of the materials collected also spread an offensive odour. But who cares?
If chemicals drums can be stored in shops located on the ground floor of residential buildings, the safety is compromised. And those handling the broken parts of computer and many other gadgets are quite unaware of the risks involved. The problem lies with the policy or its absence on disposal of such materials. Apart from such dangers, allegations have it that many such stores also deal in drugs such as yaba. The suspicion gains ground for the simple reason that they have to pay rent in competition with other outlets of popular and expensive goods. How do they compete?
That residential areas are becoming more crowded than before is clear from the increasing number of grocery shops, restaurants, diagnostic centres, clinics, doctors' chambers, coaching centres, banks, beauty parlours, apparel and tailors' shops and what not! Even the ATM booths and customer care centres of mobile phones are coming closer to literally every residence.
All this certainly indicates that people are becoming richer and they have more money to spare for luxury goods. But there is a saturation point where business is going to get dull. When super stores like Agora, Shapno (should be Swapno), Meena Bazaar, Carre Family, Nandan etc; started appearing in the posh areas, who could think of their spreading roots in all parts of the city? But this is happening and sometimes two or more of their outlets are found within a kilometer of each other. Have people become so lazy and comfort-loving that they want to purchase most of their essentials under one roof?
Indications are clear that some of them are doing brisk business, brisker than anyone even anticipated before. However, this does not bode well for the health of the capital where traffic jam has now intruded into alleys. The city's sustainability will be at risk if businesses announce their ubiquitous presence all over. There is need for space for healthy living. Also business alone at the expense of production is not good for economy as well. Concentration of business in urban centres does not reflect the strength of economy. Decentralisation should be a better option.