With all its downfalls, unreliable traffic, pollution, hazardous roads, water stagnancy, open manholes, and terrible garbage system, Dhaka is still my favourite city in the world. Why? Because it’s been around for 400 years and, despite all we do to this city, it still bears with us, like a mother of naughty children.
With it now finding itself in the ICU -- as the honourable mayor of Dhaka North claims -- Dhaka brings out even more empathy in me, just as I would be concerned about my dear ones if they had been in the ICU. Now, two things can be done at this stage. One: Declare Dhaka a lost cause, or two: Take steps to re-build it as a liveable city.
As Dhaka North’s mayor said in his election manifesto: We know the challenges, it’s now the time to solve it -- something I find extremely encouraging in an era when no one seems to do anything.
One of the challenges on the path to making Dhaka liveable and loveable again is realising its potential for prosperity and liveability. One significant reason is that Dhaka’s urbanisation has been messy and unplanned. The messy part of urban Dhaka is reflected in the widespread existence of informal settlements and slums.
This messy and hidden urbanisation is symptomatic of the failure to adequately address overcrowding constraints that arise from the pressure of an increasing urban population. Thus, for logical reasons, the policy-makers and urban practitioners face severe challenges in effectively managing a megacity like Dhaka.
As we can see from recent statements from our city administrators, the usual nagging is being replaced by more optimistic discourse on leveraging the benefits of urbanisation for growth and prosperity. The changing attitudes of policy-makers are visible as they ask: What does Dhaka need to do to meet the demands of its growing population and to manage transformation? How can we create an effective, functioning, and sustainable system?
Talking about sustainable solutions for Dhaka, we have to keep in mind that liveability is critical to the establishment of a sustainable community. However, “liveability” as a term is exceptionally difficult to define.
In a nutshell, for Dhaka, it is essentially tied to amenities such as drivable roads, living space with basic needs, open spaces, secure walkways, green spaces while keeping in mind career opportunities, economic dynamism, or some degree of reasonable safety within which to raise a family.
There are certainly frequent parallels between the liveability agenda and changing the paradigm of rapid urbanisation. Nevertheless, for an ICU city like Dhaka, it has to be said that the aims of a liveability policy on communities are focused on the quality of life, rather than, implicitly, on sustainable development.
In cities like Bangkok and Kolkata, where similar challenges were observed, the critical success factor in the identification and implementation of liveability as an integral part of sustainable communities was the over-arching role of public engagement in the articulation of what is meant by liveability.
In a city like Dhaka, where making any change means displacing millions of people, it is accepted that definitions of liveability would differ significantly from community to community.
The people living in Dhaka need to recognise that liveability extends to economic dynamism and career opportunities as well as recreational, aesthetic, cross-generational, and cultural activities. At the same time, policy-makers need to embed liveability concerns into the culture of the city corporation instead of taking politically motivated short-term initiatives.
As mentioned earlier, in a vibrant city like Dhaka, community involvement and support, combined with a willingness of city corporations to accept and work at the grassroots level can make Dhaka thrive again. This means the concept of liveability in the local community is better understood, and is more integrated into policy, planning, and political will.
And this needs to be supported by policy diffusion, education, and training within authorities, and a system perspective that looks at relationships between city corporations.
Like every challenge, for administrators trusted to keep Dhaka liveable, there is a choice between two routes. The easy way is to continue with the same course of action -- repair and maintain. This easy and used path will leave Dhaka locked into the worst cycle of urban problems and risks.
Or, we can undertake difficult and appropriate policy reforms to assuage both current and future challenges, enabling the incredible untapped potential of Dhaka to be realised.
Like any development challenge, this will not be easy, but trust me, if we start working this instant, a century from now, our future generations will reap the benefits of a prosperous and liveable Dhaka city.