Channel: TDC

Category: News & Politics

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Description: Dhaka, Bangladesh - the capital of the most densely populated major country in the world - is also the planet's fastest growing city. Subscribe to TDC: youtube.com/TheDailyConversation Dhaka five part documentary: youtube.com/watch?v=MoMifNO4w6s Beautiful shots of Dhaka: youtube.com/watch?v=-VYzQLArN6o Footsteps interviews with citizens of Dhaka: youtube.com/watch?v=SbSLomNBZcA Video by Bryce Plank Edited by Robin West Connect on FB: facebook.com/thedailyconversation and Twitter: twitter.com/thedailyconvo Music: "Dragon and Toast" by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com "Jalandhar" by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com "Heavy Interlude" by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com "Far Away" by MK2 YouTube Audio Library All video/images used in accordance with Fair Use best practices in US Copyright Law. Script: 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.”