Mahbubur Rahman :
It was a beaming Fall 2010 morning in Calgary – a city in western Canada which has consistently been among the top five most liveable cities in the world and the cleanest city in the world- a city that I had just adopted as my home. It was beaming not because of early sun as the city had one of the longest daylights in North America; it was beaming just out of a fresh mayoral election and having elected the first Muslim Mayor of a major western city who will later become the most popular as well. Though I was not a voter, yet, nevertheless I was elated because Mayor Nahid was in the same occupation as mine- a teacher at the local University.
I was waiting for a friend in the lobby of the office of SNC Lavalin, the company that had become infamous for the Padma Bridge graft, and stuck what they will call a conversation with the elderly porter. It was in fact him who initiated it by saying “at last we have an educated father.” I was lost; did he have more than one father, or his father just received a degree lately which wouldn’t be unusual! But use of the word ‘we’ perplexed me.
Clearly baffled, I politely asked “what do you mean?” And what I heard was more surprising. He said “we had meat cutters and carpenters as Mayors before. Now we have a Professor!”
It was surprising not because here was a Caucasian low-paid working class man full of praise for an Asian Immigrant (Mayor Nahid is an Ismailia who emigrated from Tanzania) who are otherwise expected to feel that ‘these immigrants’ are taking away all their jobs! I was surprised with the use of the word ‘father.’
Later this thought of the Mayor being the ‘city father’ came back to me when Mamnoon Chowdhury wrote a piece in DS arguing the case for an architect to be the Mayor of Dhaka. So what a father, a mayor and an architect have in common? What my father had, and what would in deed be common for all fathers? And what all these great mayors who were architects had? My father was a humble man; but he had this ‘vision.’ Despite it put heavy toll on his pocket, he sent me to the best school, college and university Bangladesh had, to give me the best of education. And in fact all fathers have this ‘vision’ – doing what is best for their children.
Now Mayor Annisul, what ‘vision’ do you have for this city which has consistently been among the worst in the world in recent times? Well Mayor Nahid had few, and he has lived up to all his commitments. Perhaps you had some; though I was not in Dhaka during the election, you are a smart man, and I guess you displayed your ‘vision’ to the citizen as election pledges. Few months ago you were in a publication ceremony of a book of mine (Dhaka Urban Reader), comparing the hugeness of everything in Dhaka with those in Calgary- population, scarcity of resources and even lack of power. And I found from newspaper reports that you often mentions lack of power, that you are only empowered to clean the garbage and sweep the streets of Dhaka! True, but that shouldn’t deter you from having a vision for the city under your charge.
So what does the city need?
First of all, of course, a ‘vision.’ How you want to see the city in 5 years, 20 years or 50 years time. This vision should be based on its potential, for example human and natural resources, resilience of the citizens, social cohesion, livelihood, culture, whatever; but you have to articulate that. For example it could be a sustainable city, a pedestrian city, a green city, a city based on water urbanism, or why not a smart city!
In 2007, I attended the first public presentation of DAP (Detail Area Plan) by the consultants at the RAJUK Bhaban. They started by saying they will convert Dhanmondi Road no 3 into commercial uses. I went there not only representing the architects of Bangladesh, but as a common citizen too, expecting to hear what the planners are planning for the future of the city, for us. Not something as mundane as allowing few more shops! And in fact aren’t all our developments (?) commercially driven? The city planners had no vision, but only commercial motive!
Next would be a ‘plan.’ It has become a cliché for every table talker to comment that we don’t have a plan. Believe me we have PLANS. We had a plan in 1917 done by somebody who is recognised as the father of city planning! Though most of those plans are basically landuse zoning and transport network, how much of that have we implemented? Not even a quarter. Removing the large establishments like cantonment from within the city has been a popular talk, which however could not bring a flinch in the eyes of those who could do it. Will it surprise you if I say it is not a popular wish but a legal claim as every plan starting from the 100 years old one has kept that provision, last of which was approved by the parliament in 1997? The whole 1981 Development Plan was discarded except the Uttara Extension Project, and you know why- this is a real estate driven city.
So the last would be ‘governance’ – sticking to the rule of law, accountability and participation. In the meet mentioned above, the Rajuk Planner claimed to have consulted all stakeholders before proposing the DAP. When asked about the stakeholders she consulted, the answer was WASA, PDB, etc. Are they the stakeholders or the service agencies that should serve the stakeholders- the citizens? While DAP was kept in Rajuk lobby for months for people’s hearing, nobody turned up. Once it was about to be adopted by the parliament, the MPs of Dhaka, many of which were land developers (read ‘grabbers’), started to cry that they were not consulted (meaning their interest was at stake)! Several MPs instigated their constituents with false plea that the CITY is planning to take away their land! This is happening again with old Jail area redevelopment (see my article in DS on August 30). The question then is, are they the true stakeholders- speaking for us?
Mr Mayor (s), you have the mandate, you are the father.
I am using an excerpt from an article by Tahmina Amir published in Prothom Alo on October 1.
“Development doesn’t mean huge buildings and wide roads. It is rather the mentality of urbanites that should measure development and progress. You cannot have development with down sliding morality. While the country is deep into foreign debt, creating employment for select few with FDI cannot be development. It is rather uniform distribution of wealth in a corruption-less society that is the primary step to climb the development stair. Dhaka is a dream city- I too hear its calls. We may be poor, but only the big dreams can liberate our mind. Let our morality improves along with our beloved city.”
Do I need to tell more? n
It was a beaming Fall 2010 morning in Calgary – a city in western Canada which has consistently been among the top five most liveable cities in the world and the cleanest city in the world- a city that I had just adopted as my home. It was beaming not because of early sun as the city had one of the longest daylights in North America; it was beaming just out of a fresh mayoral election and having elected the first Muslim Mayor of a major western city who will later become the most popular as well. Though I was not a voter, yet, nevertheless I was elated because Mayor Nahid was in the same occupation as mine- a teacher at the local University.
I was waiting for a friend in the lobby of the office of SNC Lavalin, the company that had become infamous for the Padma Bridge graft, and stuck what they will call a conversation with the elderly porter. It was in fact him who initiated it by saying “at last we have an educated father.” I was lost; did he have more than one father, or his father just received a degree lately which wouldn’t be unusual! But use of the word ‘we’ perplexed me.
Clearly baffled, I politely asked “what do you mean?” And what I heard was more surprising. He said “we had meat cutters and carpenters as Mayors before. Now we have a Professor!”
It was surprising not because here was a Caucasian low-paid working class man full of praise for an Asian Immigrant (Mayor Nahid is an Ismailia who emigrated from Tanzania) who are otherwise expected to feel that ‘these immigrants’ are taking away all their jobs! I was surprised with the use of the word ‘father.’
Later this thought of the Mayor being the ‘city father’ came back to me when Mamnoon Chowdhury wrote a piece in DS arguing the case for an architect to be the Mayor of Dhaka. So what a father, a mayor and an architect have in common? What my father had, and what would in deed be common for all fathers? And what all these great mayors who were architects had? My father was a humble man; but he had this ‘vision.’ Despite it put heavy toll on his pocket, he sent me to the best school, college and university Bangladesh had, to give me the best of education. And in fact all fathers have this ‘vision’ – doing what is best for their children.
Now Mayor Annisul, what ‘vision’ do you have for this city which has consistently been among the worst in the world in recent times? Well Mayor Nahid had few, and he has lived up to all his commitments. Perhaps you had some; though I was not in Dhaka during the election, you are a smart man, and I guess you displayed your ‘vision’ to the citizen as election pledges. Few months ago you were in a publication ceremony of a book of mine (Dhaka Urban Reader), comparing the hugeness of everything in Dhaka with those in Calgary- population, scarcity of resources and even lack of power. And I found from newspaper reports that you often mentions lack of power, that you are only empowered to clean the garbage and sweep the streets of Dhaka! True, but that shouldn’t deter you from having a vision for the city under your charge.
So what does the city need?
First of all, of course, a ‘vision.’ How you want to see the city in 5 years, 20 years or 50 years time. This vision should be based on its potential, for example human and natural resources, resilience of the citizens, social cohesion, livelihood, culture, whatever; but you have to articulate that. For example it could be a sustainable city, a pedestrian city, a green city, a city based on water urbanism, or why not a smart city!
In 2007, I attended the first public presentation of DAP (Detail Area Plan) by the consultants at the RAJUK Bhaban. They started by saying they will convert Dhanmondi Road no 3 into commercial uses. I went there not only representing the architects of Bangladesh, but as a common citizen too, expecting to hear what the planners are planning for the future of the city, for us. Not something as mundane as allowing few more shops! And in fact aren’t all our developments (?) commercially driven? The city planners had no vision, but only commercial motive!
Next would be a ‘plan.’ It has become a cliché for every table talker to comment that we don’t have a plan. Believe me we have PLANS. We had a plan in 1917 done by somebody who is recognised as the father of city planning! Though most of those plans are basically landuse zoning and transport network, how much of that have we implemented? Not even a quarter. Removing the large establishments like cantonment from within the city has been a popular talk, which however could not bring a flinch in the eyes of those who could do it. Will it surprise you if I say it is not a popular wish but a legal claim as every plan starting from the 100 years old one has kept that provision, last of which was approved by the parliament in 1997? The whole 1981 Development Plan was discarded except the Uttara Extension Project, and you know why- this is a real estate driven city.
So the last would be ‘governance’ – sticking to the rule of law, accountability and participation. In the meet mentioned above, the Rajuk Planner claimed to have consulted all stakeholders before proposing the DAP. When asked about the stakeholders she consulted, the answer was WASA, PDB, etc. Are they the stakeholders or the service agencies that should serve the stakeholders- the citizens? While DAP was kept in Rajuk lobby for months for people’s hearing, nobody turned up. Once it was about to be adopted by the parliament, the MPs of Dhaka, many of which were land developers (read ‘grabbers’), started to cry that they were not consulted (meaning their interest was at stake)! Several MPs instigated their constituents with false plea that the CITY is planning to take away their land! This is happening again with old Jail area redevelopment (see my article in DS on August 30). The question then is, are they the true stakeholders- speaking for us?
Mr Mayor (s), you have the mandate, you are the father.
I am using an excerpt from an article by Tahmina Amir published in Prothom Alo on October 1.
“Development doesn’t mean huge buildings and wide roads. It is rather the mentality of urbanites that should measure development and progress. You cannot have development with down sliding morality. While the country is deep into foreign debt, creating employment for select few with FDI cannot be development. It is rather uniform distribution of wealth in a corruption-less society that is the primary step to climb the development stair. Dhaka is a dream city- I too hear its calls. We may be poor, but only the big dreams can liberate our mind. Let our morality improves along with our beloved city.”
Do I need to tell more? n
(Mahbubur Rahman, Dean of Engineering & Design,
Kingdom University, Bahrain)
