THE urban population has recorded remarkable increase globally. A report of the United Nations shows that majority of the world's six billion people are now living in urban centres. It predicts that population of urban areas will double and reach to five billion by 2025, representing a 14 per cent rise -- from 47 per cent to over 61 per cent -- in its share as the world's population.
That's not all. The UN report says that most of this explosive growth will occur in the cities of the developing world. Asia remains at the top in many cases. Asian city population will be among the highest. The number of cities will rise and most of it is in Asia. Out of the predicted rise of the urban population by 358 million, 153 million will be in Asia. And there will be 27 "mega-cities", 18 of them in Asia.
All this should be considered a matter of concern for us for many reasons. Our Dhaka city has been expanding from its all sides. One can notice the actual size of the population of the city, possibly, during any Eid festival. The exodus of city residents on the eve of every Eid tells one how big the city's population is. The inter-district transports cannot provide necessary seats to the homebound people. The traffic jam on the highways starts well ahead of Eid. During the entire month of holy Ramadan, we have faced unprecedented traffic problem in city.
The burden of city population can only be reduced through proper development planning with the objective of making upazilas as growth centres. All the governments have so far centralised all development activities.
Until now Dhaka city remains the nerve centre of administration. People from the far-off areas have to come to Dhaka to get a decision even on petty matters. There should be an effective decentralisation of decision-making and emphasis on bottom-up planning.
Omar Haider
Gopibagh
Dhaka
Importance of proper migration
FE Team | Published: October 12, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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