Everest and the Himalayas.
It may not seem like this mountain range could shape a Megacity almost 600 kilometers away,
but it does.
This place, the capital of the most densely populated major country in the world, is also
the fastest growing city on the planet.
This is an examination of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The constant supply of melting snow and water that flows down the Himalayas to the south
creates the largest delta in the world.
Much of it runs through Bangladesh, an agricultural paradise with some of the richest soil on
the planet.
But all that water is also a curse.
With more than 700 rivers flowing into the Bay of Bengal, many of the country’s residents
become displaced when monsoon season arrives in mid June every year.
Annual rainfall in Bangladesh is over 78 inches, and two-thirds of the country’s 64 districts
experience regular flooding.
Combine that with the highest population density of any major country, and you understand why
Dhaka is adding more than 400,000 residents a year.
If even a little of Bangladesh’s precious land is overtaken by water, many of its people
instantly become homeless.
To top that off, when fields and villages flood, these already struggling micro-economies
become even less sustainable.
So people pour into the capital because that’s where the jobs are.
More than two million people now work in Dhaka’s many garment factories.
That industry is the engine of the Bangladeshi economy, producing 80% of its exports.
But it can be a hard industry to break into if you’re a farmer coming from the countryside,
so many unskilled people find work in the off-the books economy.
There’s a reason why this is known as the rickshaw capital of the world.
Cash gigs like vegetable salesman, barber, shopkeeper, boatman, and cycling cabbie make
up nearly 4 out of 5 jobs here.
Average pay for this full-time work is less than $100 a month.
Development is a tough nut to crack.
In order to raise revenue to provide better services and solve problems like traffic congestion,
the city needs to bring these people out of the shadow economy.
That idea was examined in the Global Post’s excellent report on Dhaka from a few years
ago:
[Erik German, Global Post] “Legitimizing this vast slum economy would mean compelling
millions of vegetable sellers, shop owners, barbers to get licenses, pay taxes, and formalize
working conditions.
It’s a gargantuan task.”
Dhakka wasn’t always so low in the global economic pecking order.
In its heyday, as the commercial capital of the Mughal empire in the 17th century, it
was one of the wealthiest and most prosperous cities on the planet.
The Venice of the East, known then as Jahangir Nagar, was a worldwide hub of the cotton and
silk trade.
Its palatial caravansary, the Bara Katra, sheltered merchants traveling along the Grand
Trunk Road, one of the oldest and longest thoroughfares in Asia.
Then, Dhaka fell into two centuries of turmoil that saw its status decline.
First, the British took control in 1765.
When they were forced out in the middle of the twentieth century, the city became the
capital of Eastern Pakistan.
Bangladesh finally won its independence in 1971, but only after suffering heavy damage
during many battles.
One of the legacies of two and a half centuries of power struggle in this region is its confusing
and hard to define borders.
The India-Bangladesh boundary is one of the strangest in the world.
One look and it's obvious, Dhaka is taking in people from the entire region—Bangladeshi
or not.
This great migration is overwhelming the city’s infrastructure and services, which simply
can’t keep up.
Still, there are some obvious things the country should be doing to help Dhaka better manage
its growth.
[Solana Pyne, Global Post] “One deceptively simple suggestion: put control over vital
services in the hands of a single municipal government accountable to the people it serves.
As in many unplanned cities of it’s size, Dhaka’s police, utilities, and roadways
are controlled by a dozen or more national authorities, mostly run by political appointees.”
Unfortunately, Bangladesh’s political system is not functioning properly, especially at
the national level.
Dhaka’s police force engages in extrajudicial killings and the government tolerates — and
even encourages — attacks on journalists, academics, and minority groups who try to
expose mistreatment and corruption.
And the city has experienced an uptick in terrorism, and there’s evidence some of
its militant networks may be turning to the extremely violent tactics of the Islamic State
or Boko Haram in Africa.
[CBS News reporter] “There’s a battle underway to attack foreigners.
This site was a site where lots of foreigners congregated and the attackers knew they would
have foreigners as victims.
That’s why they attacked where they did.”
But — like many of the other underdeveloped megacities we’ll profile in this series
— the most pressing need Dhaka’s citizens face is daily access to clean water.
Many people live in slums with limited water and limited money to buy it.
This leaves the entire city — teeming with mosquitoes — vulnerable to all sorts of
health issues.
[Citizen of Dhaka] “No, it’s not safe.
But we have to drink it.
We can’t boil it because we’re too poor.
My daughter is sick right now.”
In the end, it’s easy to focus on the problems of this place.
But many of Dhaka’s people are filled with hope.
In a video produced by the YouTube channel Footsteps, we see there’s no shortage of
bright people full of ideas for how to make things better.
[Citizen of Dhaka] “Do we have problems?
Yeah, we have problems.
We have traffic congestion, we have corruption.
So a lot of problems.
We have to identify them.
But these ridiculous statistics and labels like, ‘Dhaka is the second worst city to
live in.’
Please don’t buy into that s**t.
These are just people with agendas.
So let’s forget about all these ‘second worse city to live in’ and let’s just
do our best to make this city the best city to live in.”
He’s right, in the end the people of Dhaka will decide their fate.
But they need to have a real sense of urgency, because the real challenge is just beginning.
Climate change threatens to make their situation much worse.
By 2040, it will be 2 degrees celsius warmer, the glaciers and snowpack in the Himalayas
will melt faster, and rivers flowing from the mountains in the north will meet wider
deltas in the south, as more intense and more frequent cyclones drop more rain on this already
flood-prone land.
Much of Bangladesh lies within 10 meters below sea level.
That means when the sea rises an expected two feet in the coming years, the already
overcrowded country will have 3% less land.
It won’t be easy to implement the changes Dhaka needs to see, but there are solutions
to most of these challenges.
Thanks for watching.
I’d love to know what you think Dhaka — and Bangladesh as a whole — should prioritize
in its quest to manage one of the most challenging situations any civilization has ever faced.
If you like this video, subscribe and check back as we’ll be profiling a different megacity
every week.
Next week, we head to New York.
Until next time, for TDC, I’m Bryce Plank.