Sustainable Urban Development: A Sustainability Study of the Dhaka Megacity

Abstract

Sustainable urban development is a precondition for positive and eco-centered development under the Urban Sustainability Framework (USF) (ADB, 2018). Climate change has played a vital role in global economic development. Meanwhile, the Earth is a roughcast multidimensional development dilemma, in which urbanization is one of them. There is a perceptual gap between the actual demand of the public and decision-makers’ perceptions. According to recent UN studies, approximately 55 per cent of the world’s population resides in urban areas, whereas it was 30 per cent in 1950. Currently, urbanization trends are very significant by population, for instance, in North America (82%), Latin America, and the Caribbean (81%), Europe (74%), and Oceania (68%). Urban growth in Asia is at an average of 50% and in Africa at 43% (UN, 2018). In the last two decades, the urbanization rate in Bangladesh has been 39.7% and the annual average growth rate is 3.21% (Knoema, 2023). However, this unplanned development has been destructive to natural growth, destroying the ecological environment, dishonouring historical monuments, and, finally, the cost is high in terms of money and sustainability. In this study, Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is the most vulnerable city in the world because of population, internal migration, air pollution, water pollution, and many more genuine reasons. Accordingly, this city is now unable to bear the load of this growing population’s weight, which is horrible (ADB, 1998). Unplanned development also helps to increase traffic, and people waste their productive time in a way that also affects the GDP of Bangladesh. Ultimately, unplanned, imbalanced, and unsustainable development is increasing hazard, death risk, and several negative impacts of urban development in Dhaka. Consequently, for the sake of God, this type of rapid urban development needs to be reconsidered by policymakers and implementers for the betterment of current and future generations.