Unplanned Housing in Dhaka City: Finding Solutions
1. Introduction
Figure 1: Slums just beneath of palaces
Human beings are by nature “House Dwellers”. Prehistoric people, leaving cave, started living in houses. From huts to modern skyscrapers, people build houses for safety, shelter and comfort. But, human cannot build nestle in trees like birds, they need lands. So, with the increase of population, land scarcity increases, problem arises. Sometimes people use lands to make habitable without any pre-plan. This type of unplanned housing leads to misuse of total habitable land and also unnecessarily decreases cultivable lands. In a country like Bangladesh, population is increasing at such an alarming rate that, in near future, living in sea can also become necessary. Especially in Dhaka, the situation is more complicated. As, Bangladesh couldn’t decentralize her capital, people from all over the country rush to Dhaka in search of better opportunity. As a result, almost one fifteenth of the population lives in one certain city. Dhaka is ranked 19th among the megacities by population and this population will reach to 26 million within 2025 if it remains uncontrolled. To accommodate this huge stream of people, unplanned residential areas came into being. Aristocratic people possessed more than sufficient land for their palaces whereas, poor people could only manage small slums to accommodate huge. Moreover, commercial areas overlapped in residential areas and total environment has become hazardous. Now the scenario is, one part of Dhaka shows the glamour of modern life with modern housing facilities, where, below the light, darkness resides in the highly increasing number of unplanned slums. So, Dhaka is now a city of people and people everywhere with no place to feel safe to reside. So, it has become a must to re-plan Dhaka again for Healthy living.
2. Planned Housing and Dhaka city
2.1 Planned Housing
“Planned Housing” is a very important task before planning any megacity. To make a city fit for living,
Figure 1: Slums just beneath of palaces
Human beings are by nature “House Dwellers”. Prehistoric people, leaving cave, started living in houses. From huts to modern skyscrapers, people build houses for safety, shelter and comfort. But, human cannot build nestle in trees like birds, they need lands. So, with the increase of population, land scarcity increases, problem arises. Sometimes people use lands to make habitable without any pre-plan. This type of unplanned housing leads to misuse of total habitable land and also unnecessarily decreases cultivable lands. In a country like Bangladesh, population is increasing at such an alarming rate that, in near future, living in sea can also become necessary. Especially in Dhaka, the situation is more complicated. As, Bangladesh couldn’t decentralize her capital, people from all over the country rush to Dhaka in search of better opportunity. As a result, almost one fifteenth of the population lives in one certain city. Dhaka is ranked 19th among the megacities by population and this population will reach to 26 million within 2025 if it remains uncontrolled. To accommodate this huge stream of people, unplanned residential areas came into being. Aristocratic people possessed more than sufficient land for their palaces whereas, poor people could only manage small slums to accommodate huge. Moreover, commercial areas overlapped in residential areas and total environment has become hazardous. Now the scenario is, one part of Dhaka shows the glamour of modern life with modern housing facilities, where, below the light, darkness resides in the highly increasing number of unplanned slums. So, Dhaka is now a city of people and people everywhere with no place to feel safe to reside. So, it has become a must to re-plan Dhaka again for Healthy living.
2. Planned Housing and Dhaka city
2.1 Planned Housing
“Planned Housing” is a very important task before planning any megacity. To make a city fit for living,
References: 2. ”Detail Area Plan (DAP) of Dhaka Shattering the vision of DMDP”- The Daily Star, Saturday, December 20, 2008 3