A city needs a plan

Where is the plan?

Where is the plan for Dhaka? Awellfunc-tioning city is designed and meticulously planned which then is diligently implemented; it simply does not happen on its own. While there should always be latitudes in design, a city begins and proceeds with a plan, one that has both poetry and pragmatism. Dhaka needs such a thing dearly, a vision of what it can be, what is possible, and what is more profitable in every respect. Development and investment should follow plan. And the plan should be based on urbanism, on the quality of urban culture, and not urbanisation, on a set of abstract statistics and numbers.

Dhaka is too precious to be left with statisticians and bureaucrats, and too complex for architects and designers. But for too long the planning of Dhaka has been in the hands of third-rate international consultants, ineffective local operatives, and vested interest groups who had neither the spirit nor élan to address this dire issue.

What should be in the plan? We know that it is a wishful thinking to think about a decent future for Dhaka when it is held captive by nonchalance, greed and ineptitude, especially when we are at a national crisis, but still we wish to establish that wistfulness in the substratum of our collective desires. We wonder: What should the poets of the new plan take up when that opportunity really comes? Here are some suggestions around critical elements of that future Plan.

 

 

 

 

What Dhaka is	What Dhaka Can Be
A city needs a plan	Disperse Dhaka, contain Dhaka
Dhaka is almost an island	Housing is the fabric of the city
Catalytic architecture for urban transformation	A modern city thrives on efficient mobility
A city for the twenty-first century	The street should be designed for the pedestrian
Open spaces are needed for existential reasons	Overhaul urban institutions
Urban districts, heritage places and urban assets	Sadarghat river front development