Planned urbanisation for a solution
Mahfuzul Haque | Friday, 15 August 2008
FROM a city of some two million people at the time of the independence of the country, Dhaka's population has swelled to some 15 million. With four or five million more people by the year 2015, Dhaka is expected to be the world's fourth most populous city.
City population Chittagong and Khulna are also likely to grow, though probably not on the scale of Dhaka. But the pace of urbanisation appears to be irresistible in Bangladesh as elsewhere in other developing countries across the world.
Decentralisation and local growth centres tried in the past, could be tested with a new vigour. But it is doubtful that it would stop the great rush of people from the countryside to the urban centres. The urban areas attract them with regular and higher incomes. For the rural people, it is a strong pull factor. Despite the obvious negative sides to rapid urbanisation, this trend, on the whole, is also the mark of an economy in transition.
Primary agricultural produces make up the major part of an economy at its nascent stage. Urbanisation marks a major economic shift with industrial and service sectors contributing more to the gross domestic product (GDP). There was a time, when the bigger part of the population of the developed countries lived in the villages and developed on farming. Now, nearly 90 per cent of their population, on average, live now in urban centres; industries and services are their main occupation. They have become wealthier in the process with much better standards of living.
In the Bangladesh context, there is nothing to be apprehensive about its rapid urbanisation or to consider it an abnormality. What should be of concern is prompt adoption and implementation of policies for planned urbanisation. Urbanisation need not be perceived as a fearful or unwelcome phenomenon. But urbanisation needs be better regulated to develop the quality of life and simultaneously industrialise and diversify the economy. In fact, urbanisation has a positive socio-economic impact, for the rural folks, provided plans are well made and implemented to receive and absorb the exodus of rural people. This is the real challenge facing urban planners of the country.
The imperative is to initiate, without wasting time, short- and long-term measures to make the most of the urban future. The inevitable urbanisation needs planned growth of the cities to take place, in order to be able to care of the environmental and social needs of all sections of people. Concerted efforts do need to be made to help expand utility services and employment, especially to absorb the people from the rural areas. If these twin objectives are progressively met, urbanisation would not probably pose as a serious problem.
But adoption and enforcement of regulations must be thorough and unsparing so that none attempts to violate the goals of planned urbanisation. On the other, various utility services will have to be provided to the urban poor, besides creating the widest possible economic opportunities for them.
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The writer is a researcher and freelance journalist
City population Chittagong and Khulna are also likely to grow, though probably not on the scale of Dhaka. But the pace of urbanisation appears to be irresistible in Bangladesh as elsewhere in other developing countries across the world.
Decentralisation and local growth centres tried in the past, could be tested with a new vigour. But it is doubtful that it would stop the great rush of people from the countryside to the urban centres. The urban areas attract them with regular and higher incomes. For the rural people, it is a strong pull factor. Despite the obvious negative sides to rapid urbanisation, this trend, on the whole, is also the mark of an economy in transition.
Primary agricultural produces make up the major part of an economy at its nascent stage. Urbanisation marks a major economic shift with industrial and service sectors contributing more to the gross domestic product (GDP). There was a time, when the bigger part of the population of the developed countries lived in the villages and developed on farming. Now, nearly 90 per cent of their population, on average, live now in urban centres; industries and services are their main occupation. They have become wealthier in the process with much better standards of living.
In the Bangladesh context, there is nothing to be apprehensive about its rapid urbanisation or to consider it an abnormality. What should be of concern is prompt adoption and implementation of policies for planned urbanisation. Urbanisation need not be perceived as a fearful or unwelcome phenomenon. But urbanisation needs be better regulated to develop the quality of life and simultaneously industrialise and diversify the economy. In fact, urbanisation has a positive socio-economic impact, for the rural folks, provided plans are well made and implemented to receive and absorb the exodus of rural people. This is the real challenge facing urban planners of the country.
The imperative is to initiate, without wasting time, short- and long-term measures to make the most of the urban future. The inevitable urbanisation needs planned growth of the cities to take place, in order to be able to care of the environmental and social needs of all sections of people. Concerted efforts do need to be made to help expand utility services and employment, especially to absorb the people from the rural areas. If these twin objectives are progressively met, urbanisation would not probably pose as a serious problem.
But adoption and enforcement of regulations must be thorough and unsparing so that none attempts to violate the goals of planned urbanisation. On the other, various utility services will have to be provided to the urban poor, besides creating the widest possible economic opportunities for them.
........................................
The writer is a researcher and freelance journalist