Capital’s planned urbanisation necessary for decent living

It is no other than the United Nations that observed that population growth and urbanisation are creating earth a virtual planet of slums. Their rapid growth with substandard living conditions is especially true for the world’s developing part. The rural people are migrating to cities here for a better life but they are, in fact, making themselves vulnerable to unsanitary living conditions, joblessness and various kinds of natural disasters.
The urban population in the developing world is set to double by 2030, and as the slums choking the cities are expanding with increasing numbers of people each week, countries are facing the prospect of having their urban population double its 2000 level.
Dhaka City is often notoriously described as the world’s ‘worst’ livable city with its present population around 18 millions. With each day people from the rural areas arrive in this city, the vulnerability of people is increasing more and more.
As a great portion of Dhaka inhabitants do not have durable housing, sufficient living area, secure tenure and access to clean water and sanitation, that is, living in slums, the relevant policy makers must address this serious issue and plan for Dhaka City to grow as a sustainable city.
This phenomenon warrants managing urbanisation as it occurs rather than fixing the problem later when the problem is compounded manifold. Urbanisation is an inevitable fact and no country can enjoy economic growth without it and if we do not make the right decisions now, the result will simply be chaos. In fact, it is already so. Until now the response of the government to ballooning growth has been to discourage newcomers, but this policy has not worked and has resulted in increased slum growth.
There is, however, no single model to manage rapid urbanisation but the example of cities like Seoul, Singapore, Istanbul, etc. can offer the relevant policy makers some valuable guidance. South Korea, strengthening institutions for valuing and pricing land, has supported high rise residential buildings and multiple transport modes including highways, rail networks and subway lines that help connect people with employment opportunities within and among cities.
Similarly, Singapore and Japan have used public transport as a crucial aspect of land-use plans. It is interesting to note that the world’s one of the richest countries, Japan, made it difficult to own a car making it costlier and inspired the commuters to use public transport.
Decentralisation of the capital is an oft-discussed solution here with little work done in that direction. Shifting some major offices to other cities with concomitant development of communications can indeed be a great help.