The earthquake tragedy in Colombia last month should make Bangladesh ask a question that has little to do with predicting earthquakes: What happens when most of a nation's population, opportunity, and institutional capacity become concentrated in one city?
The United Nations projects Dhaka to become the world's largest city by 2050, with a population exceeding 50 million. Bangladesh already struggles with congestion, housing shortages, groundwater stress, pollution, inadequate sanitation, and enormous pressure on public services. Add tens of millions of people to this urban system, and earthquake vulnerability becomes only one dimension of a much larger human-development challenge.
Bangladesh already has projects designed to strengthen secondary cities, transportation corridors, and areas outside Dhaka. But the scale of the coming transformation requires something larger.
We should stop thinking primarily about moving people and start moving opportunities.
Start with those whose jobs may not survive
Walk through Dhaka and one sees an extraordinary amount of human effort.
A rickshaw puller pedals through extreme heat. A day labourer waits each morning hoping someone needs him. A young graduate rides a bicycle for deliveries because he cannot find work matching his education. A garment worker wonders whether automation will eventually replace part of her job. A rural worker leaves home because Dhaka appears to offer the only realistic path toward higher income.
These people are often described statistically as “labour.”
They are something much more important: Bangladesh's human capital.
The question is whether Bangladesh will continue using millions of people in occupations producing relatively little economic value and offering limited upward mobility or invest in enabling those same people to build the next economy.
Consider the rickshaw puller. The policy objective should not be to ban his rickshaw. That simply destroys income.
Ask instead: What could this person be doing 10 years from now?
Could he become a construction technician? A plumber? A logistics worker? A solar installer? A water-treatment operator? An emergency-response worker?
Then ask the more important question: What would it take to get him there?
That is human development.
Bangladesh may need housing and infrastructure for tens of millions of additional urban residents over the coming decades.
That sounds like a burden. It could also represent one of the largest employment opportunities in the country's history.
Building a network of 20 or 30 major economic centres would require enormous numbers of electricians, plumbers, welders, machine operators, construction workers, engineers, drivers, healthcare workers, water technicians, teachers, maintenance workers, and logistics professionals, among countless others.
Bangladesh already has much of the labour. The challenge is transforming skills.
Imagine a national program under which workers in vulnerable or low-productivity occupations receive paid training for three to 12 months. Training would be tied directly to employment.
The worker would not receive a certificate and then be told to search for a job. Infrastructure contracts receiving public support would commit to hiring qualified graduates.
The pathway becomes: Informal work → training → skilled employment → stable income → housing → financial inclusion → family security.
Urbanization then becomes a mechanism for social mobility.
Don't build another Dhaka
The objective should not be to create another megacity containing 30 million people.
Bangladesh needs a network.
Imagine economic centres distributed along existing and future rail, highway, and river corridors.
Some could specialize in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Others in advanced textiles, food processing, logistics, electronics, renewable energy, technology, or light manufacturing.
Each would combine employment with housing, hospitals, schools, universities, parks, public transportation, and digital infrastructure.
That distinction is essential.
People do not move because planners draw circles on maps. They move because they can build better lives.
A family will leave Dhaka voluntarily when another city offers a good job, affordable home, safe school, reliable hospital, clean water, and reasonable transportation.
Bangladesh should therefore not attempt to redistribute population. It should redistribute reasons for people to choose where they live.
Water must come before homes
Water security should determine where these new centres grow.
Dhaka illustrates what happens when population growth outruns environmental infrastructure. The World Bank's current Metro Dhaka Water Security and Resilience Program describes serious pollution of rivers and canals resulting from rapid urbanization, inadequate sanitation, industrial discharge, and waste.
Bangladesh cannot sustainably replicate this pattern across the country. The next generation of cities should reverse the sequence.
Before approving hundreds of thousands of apartments, establish where their water will come from. Protect wetlands. Build reservoirs. Capture rainwater. Treat sewage. Recycle wastewater for industry. Protect groundwater recharge. Separate stormwater from sewage. Monitor industrial discharge digitally.
Bangladesh is one of the most water-rich landscapes on Earth, yet millions of citizens still experience problems involving safe drinking water.
That paradox demonstrates that water security is not merely about how much water a country possesses. It is about whether infrastructure delivers clean water to people when and where they need it.
Urban policy is health policy
The benefits would extend directly into national health.
A hospital treats disease after it occurs. A well-designed city can prevent some disease before the patient reaches the hospital.
Clean water reduces waterborne illness. Modern sanitation reduces exposure to pathogens. Cleaner transportation improves air quality. Better drainage reduces stagnant contaminated water. Trees and shaded streets reduce dangerous heat exposure. Walkable communities encourage physical activity. Shorter commutes give parents more time to their children. Formal employment makes health insurance and retirement savings more achievable. Distributed medical centres reduce the need for families across Bangladesh to travel to Dhaka for treatment.
For a country with limited healthcare resources, prevention through better living conditions may be among the highest-return health investments available.
Then there is the earthquake.
The magnitude-7.4 earthquake that struck Colombia last month demonstrated again how quickly buildings, roads, and ordinary lives can be transformed by seismic disaster.
Bangladesh cannot know exactly when a major earthquake will strike the region. But Dhaka's vulnerability is well documented.
The answer cannot simply be more ambulances and rescue equipment.
If tens of millions of people, major hospitals, government institutions, financial organizations, and businesses remain concentrated within the same metropolitan region, Bangladesh is effectively concentrating national risk.
Developing multiple economic centres is therefore similar to diversifying an investment portfolio. If one region suffers catastrophe, the country continues functioning. Decentralization becomes national insurance.
Give Dhaka room to breathe
This strategy does not require abandoning Dhaka. It may be the best way to save it.
As future population growth increasingly occurs elsewhere, Dhaka can begin repairing the damage created by decades of uncontrolled expansion.
Unsafe buildings can gradually be replaced. Canals can be restored. Wetlands can be protected. Emergency roads can be widened. Schools and hospitals can be retrofitted. Waterways can again become environmental assets rather than drains.
Dhaka could become safer without becoming economically irrelevant.
The objective is not to weaken Dhaka. It is to make Bangladesh stronger than Dhaka alone.
Dr Mazher Mir is a Bangladeshi writer with over three decades of work on socio-economic and human development issues.