Bangladesh’s urban growth appears increasingly untenable in the face of future shocks. Lack of decentralization and unplanned urbanization have made this country of over 175 million people depend far too much on one megacity for nearly all its urban growth and glitters -- the capital, Dhaka.
If we take into cognizance the latest United Nations report, World Urbanization Prospects 2025, published two weeks back as a guide, 36.6 million inhabitants now call Dhaka their home. Dhaka has emerged as the world’s second-most populous city in 2025, trailing only the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, which has a population of 41.9 million. In 2000, Dhaka’s population was only 17.4 million (the ninth-most populous city) and over the following 25 years, it more than doubled to reach 36.6 million in 2025.
In other words, almost a fifth of Bangladesh’s total population lives in a single city -- Dhaka -- essentially choking it in every respect. Literally, it is no longer in a position to cater to the basic civic needs of all its inhabitants.
Disparity is huge between the wealthy segment of Dhaka’s population and those living on the edge of this 400-plus-year-old metropolis. Most days, Dhaka finds itself in the top-five list of the world’s most air-polluted cities. It has a fleet of public transport vehicles so old and unfit that, had they been in any other modern city, they would long have been discarded to vehicle graveyards.
Dhaka is a city where its household gas transmission company, at times, stops mixing the smelling agent (odorant) into its natural gas supply out of fear that it would expose the leaking gas pipe network laid across the city’s undergrounds. Ideally, mercaptan odorant is supposed to be added as a critical safety measure to detect leaks. Media reports revealed how people in this city who depend on supplied gas for cooking are vulnerable to gas leaks and accidents -- evident from too many deaths in too many household gas explosions in recent years.
The report notes that Bangladesh is among a small league of only seven countries where over half of a projected 986 million increase in global city dwellers by 2050 will be concentrated. The six other countries are India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Together, these countries are expected to add more than 500 million city residents by 2050.
Despite budget constraints and other physical challenges, Indonesia is at least moving ahead with its planned new capital, Nusantara. The question that haunts us is what Bangladesh is contemplating -- if at all -- about the future of its capital, as the UN predicts Dhaka will overtake Jakarta to become the world’s most populous city by 2050.
Many other countries in our part of the world have built afresh and relocated their capital cities or administrative seats over the past few decades. Take Islamabad (Pakistan), Putrajaya (Malaysia), and Naypyidaw (Myanmar) as examples. Bangladesh, for its part, has relocated some government office buildings to the Agargaon area and developed and expanded some road infrastructure there. But these appear too little, too late. For over two decades or so, Bangladesh has made little progress in developing the Purbachal new town project on the eastern fringe of Dhaka.
Like Dhaka, we have other potential riverside townships in the form of Narayanganj, Gazipur, Savar, Munshiganj, etc. Instead of concentrating the urban population in Dhaka alone, we need to develop satellite townships with modern civic amenities -- a functioning public transport system, good housing, and breathable green environments.
Besides, if we do not want Dhaka’s position in the world’s livability index to deteriorate further, we must be mindful and plan for the development of our other potential big cities like Chittagong, Sylhet, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, and Mymensingh.
Bangladesh’s first conscious decentralization efforts, undertaken during the rule of HM Ershad, have long been pushed to the backburner by successive governments. Probably, it is about time we revisit some of those plans and take up a few new ones to revitalize our other urban growth centres instead of putting all the pressure on Dhaka alone.
The number of megacities -- cities with 10 million or more inhabitants -- has quadrupled from eight in 1975 to 33 in 2025, with 19 located in Asia. Projections indicate there will be 37 megacities globally by 2050, as populations in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dar es Salaam (United Republic of Tanzania), Hajipur (India), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) grow to over 10 million.
The total number of cities worldwide has more than doubled between 1975 and 2025. Among the world’s 12,000 cities, 96% have fewer than 1 million inhabitants, and 81% have populations below 250,000.
This distribution underscores that the majority of the world’s urban population resides not in megacities, but in small and medium-sized urban centres, which play a critical role in shaping sustainable urban development. By 2050, the world could have more than 15,000 cities, most with populations below 250,000
What this essentially signifies is that Bangladesh cannot place its bet on Dhaka or a few big cities only; it has to plan its urbanization in a way that distributes its future urban population across scores of small and medium-sized urban centres.
Cities, towns, and rural areas are fundamentally linked; about 60% of the land converted to urban space since 1970 was formerly productive farmland. Bridging the urban-rural divide requires coordinated investments in transport, digital connectivity, infrastructure, and essential services, alongside national urban policies that integrate housing, land use, mobility, and service provision.
Policies that recognize the unique roles of all settlement types and promote economic activity in towns can lead to more compact urban growth while protecting agricultural lands and natural ecosystems, and ensuring the availability of essential services in all settlement types.
To effectively plan and monitor these dynamics, regular censuses and integrated geospatial-statistical systems are essential, enabling data-driven decisions that recognize the unique roles of all settlement types.
Reaz Ahmad is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.