About the talk:
When Bangladesh began to experience accelerated urbanization from the late 1980s onward, there were three policy failures in understanding the promise of the density dividend:
- First, the country uncritically accepted a historical Western fear of population density while not taking into consideration late 20th-century South Asian urban realities such as ultra-dense conurbations, informal economy and settlements, middle-class mobility, and the threat of climate change.
- Second, policymakers and local governments ignored making a critical distinction between overcrowding and density, one in which overcrowding is viewed as a public-health problem, while density an opportunity for building a community-oriented and economically dynamic lifestyle.
- Third, the appreciation of density as a pillar of sustainable living was not factored into the city planning policies of Bangladesh.
Even though today density is no longer the old demon it used to be in western cities, the idea that “good density” in Bangladesh and South Asia could be a national asset, economic driver, and, most importantly, urban justice still appears counterintuitive.
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