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Housing is the fabric of the city
Existing pattern
Proposed pattern
Group housing elevation
The modern city is ultimately about the patterns and conditions of housing, and not about glittering institutions and edifices. And housing is more than a numerical and fiscal matter; it is the key to enhancing the quality of life, both that of the immediate dwellers and the overall city. And yet housing is Dhaka's greatest disappointment. One reason for the city's muddled condition is that it is developing along individual building decisions and not considering how buildings can come together to create both a physical and social fabric.
There are no suitable large-scale models for housing for the many
- Stop planning of plots immediately.
- Develop group housing complexes.
- Housing incentives for all economic levels. Innovate mechanisms for private developers to supply housing at all income levels.
- Urban institutions should build exemplary housing and housing complexes.
different communities that inhabit Dhaka city. The platoon of housing experts has not been able to provide any vision of how we should live as a group in new urban conditions. The public sector housing, catering to government and corporation employees still continues along the defunct line of building one block after another with no thoughts for in-between spaces. The limited and lower income groups have been completely ignored in the housing equation. The middle-class is living by making do what it can in the brutal housing and rental market. The planners and experts are still floundering with two dull-witted models: the individual plot with the independent bungalow-style house, and the individual plot with a clunky apartment building. None of the two has been used thoughtfully to create the fabric of a cohesive community with an admirable quality of life.
The senseless strategy of making “new” housing areas by plotting and subdividing land should be ceased immediately, and alternative imaginative models of mass housing should be explored. Dhanmondi that started off as a “model” residential area using the plotting mechanism has now been disfigured beyond recognition by new living and economic imperatives. Dhanmondi could be better. Instead of building up on a plot, for example, in an isolated manner, 8 to 10 plots could be pooled together and developed as one single housing complex with various internal facilities including meeting areas and generous open spaces, a shop or two, play areas, or gardens for the whole complex. Similar strategies may be taken for Uttara, Purbachal and other so-called planned towns. Loan and tax incentives may be offered for initiating projects like this in existing built conditions such as Dhanmondi and Banani. For newer areas under planning, such group housing should be introduced by regulation.
Creative economic partnerships may be offered. Government land may be given to developers for large-scale development but certain percentage in the area/volume in the development should be built for low-income/middle-income consumption.
Group housing described above suggests the making and experiencing of a community. This is critical in the context of Dhaka today when older structure of communities (moholla) is fast disappearing, and the current pattern of buildings hardly encourage community building. Dhaka has become a city of fragments, with its social cohesiveness tattering away, broken down to the individual households living in their walled enclaves. Notice how the biggest investment in the city is walls and fences, none of which fare in our rural dwellings... so much for civic polity! The truth is that the general form of a city - its physical and spatial configuration - is capable of nurturing or disrupting the nature of communities. The harder truth is that we are hardly in the realm of nurturing.