[sustran] Call for abstracts/paper for BAPA-BEN Special Conference on Urbanization, Traffic Jam and Environment with revised deadline for Submission

[Syed Saiful Alam]

                                                    Special conference on


Urbanization, Traffic Jam, and Environment
 
Organized by
Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) and
Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN)
 
In association with
Universities of Bangladesh and
Other pro-environment organizations
 
To be held on
January 7 & 8 (Friday & Saturday), 2011
At venue (to be determined), Dhaka, Bangladesh
 
Papers are invited on any of the topics and sub-topics below in the flyer for presentation at the conference. The revised schedule for paper submission and processing is as follows:
 
October 15: Submission of Abstracts (not exceeding 300 words) of papers
October 30: Review of Abstracts and invitation for submission of full papers
November 30: Submission of full papers
December 15: Selection of papers for presentation in the conference
 
Abstracts are to be sent via e-mail to the following:
For authors residing in Bangladesh:
Prof. Feroze Ahmed, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
E-mail: fahmed at ce.buet.ac.bd
 
For authors residing outside Bangladesh:
            Prof. Saleh Tanveer, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
            E-mail: tanveer at math.ohio-state.edu
 
A selection of papers from among the ones presented at the conference will be published in the conference volume. 
 
 
Background
 
The urban, in 
particular, the capital city-centric development strategy is causing 
people from all across the country to flock to the Dhaka city, leading 
to an explosion of its size, so much so that it is now hard to demarcate
 its borders. Yet, the infrastructure necessary for urban life has not 
expanded in a commensurate manner. As a result, basic urban utilities, 
such as housing, transportation, electricity, water, drainage, sewerage,
 etc. are now in acute shortage. Greenery and water bodies are 
disappearing. Parks, gardens, and open spaces for recreational 
activities are becoming a rarity. Distressing slums are spreading at the
 same time as high rises are being built.
 
Horrific traffic 
jam is gradually bringing Dhaka city to a standstill. Traffic jam is 
spreading to other cities too, and it is imposing a huge cost on the 
economy in many different ways. In particular, it is discouraging many 
investors, affecting negatively the country’s economic growth prospects.
 
Meanwhile, 
pollution has become a serious threat. Thanks to the efforts by BAPA, 
BEN, and other pro-environment organizations, the two-stroke engine 
vehicles (TSEV) have been removed from the streets, so that the urban 
air quality is now somewhat better than what it was in late 1990s. 
However, the air quality still remains dangerously poor. The volume of 
household waste is increasing, and its composition is worsening due to 
rising share of plastic and other non-biodegradable components. Medical 
waste is increasing, and there is yet no separate system for its 
disposal. Electronic waste, often containing radioactive elements, has 
become a serious problem. Untreated sewerage continues to contaminate 
neighboring rivers unceasingly.
 
Industrial waste 
has now become the most dangerous threat. Lacking Effluent Treatment 
Plants (ETP), most industrial enterprises are dumping their toxic 
effluents into neighboring water bodies and rivers. As a result, the 
river Buriganga, which gave birth to the Dhaka city, is now biologically dead. The rivers Shityalakkha, Turag, and Balu are also meeting the same fate. The river Karnaphuli in Chittagong is also facing serious industrial pollution. Industrial pollution is poisoning urban land and air too.
 
Besides 
pollution, the erroneous, Cordon Approach towards rivers, pursued for 
decades under foreign advice, is disrupting the rivers, while causing 
miseries to the urban life. The so-called flood protection embankments 
are disconnecting cities and towns from neighboring rivers. As a result,
 water bodies inside cities and towns are decaying and getting 
encroached and filled up. At the same time, by preventing rainwater from
 passing on to the rivers, these embankments have given rise to the new 
and increasingly severe problem of water-logging. By encouraging 
below-flood-level settlement inside them, the embankments have made many
 more people vulnerable to flood, creating for them a very risky 
situation. Ironically, embankments have in general failed to protect 
towns from river erosion and in many cases have actually aggravated the 
erosion.
 
The pollution and
 Cordon Approach to rivers have created a crisis in urban water supply. 
On the one hand, the Cordon Approach has encouraged dependence on 
groundwater. However, relentless withdrawal has now caused the 
groundwater table to descend, making further extraction of groundwater 
difficult, and creating a vacuum and raising the danger of subsidence. 
On the other hand, pollution has now made neighboring river water unfit 
for consumption.
 
The Dhaka-centric development has resulted in relative neglect and lack of development of district and upazilla towns.
 Adequate investment and resources are not directed towards them. In 
fact, the country faces a vicious circle, whereby lack of development in
 district andupazilla towns is causing their affluent people to 
flock to Dhaka, fueling its further development while perpetuating and 
even aggravating underdevelopment of district and upazilla towns.
 
On the other hand, tragically, the district and upazilla towns,
 in whatever urbanization effort they can afford, are following the 
footsteps of Dhaka city. They are also filling up water bodies, cutting 
down trees, building embankments to sever connections with rivers, 
extracting groundwater, inviting water logging, increasing vulnerability
 to flooding, polluting the environment, and aggravating rich-poor 
divide with regard to access to urban utilities and other public 
services.
 
Overall, 
urbanization in Bangladesh is facing a crisis. Yet, the current 
urbanization rate is only about 20 percent. Given the crisis that it 
already faces, one wonders how Bangladesh will achieve urbanization 
rates of 40 or 60 percent. In the past, the country did achieve some 
progress in reducing the population growth rate. However, subsequent 
complacency and increase in the population base figure have now resulted
 in huge annual increases in the total population size. Urbanization in 
the context of such a huge and increasing population is posing a 
mindboggling challenge.
 
Unfortunately, 
there is as yet no integrated, comprehensive, and effective effort to 
overcome the urbanization crisis that Bangladesh faces. Urbanization 
efforts so far remain ad hoc, isolated, and partial in nature. In
 many cases, these efforts contradict and nullify benefits of each 
other. For example, the “Western Embankment,” built to protect Dhaka 
city from flooding, has now become a major cause of water logging. 
Similarly, while talking about solving traffic jam problem, the 
government is taking many steps that are aggravating the problem. In yet
 another example, the government is failing to make owners to set up 
ETPs in their industrial enterprises, even though it is expressing its 
resolve to free rivers from pollution. Overall, there is a lack of 
vision and integrated effort in resolving urbanization issues.
 
How can 
Bangladesh overcome the urbanization crisis? How can Bangladesh make use
 of its small size and dense population to reduce rural-urban difference
 and thereby lessen the urbanization pressure? How can Bangladesh attain
 dispersed urbanization in order to avoid unwieldy mega cities? How can 
Bangladesh ensure balanced development of district andupazilla towns?
 How can Bangladesh make urbanization pro-environment? How can 
Bangladesh solve the special problems of towns and cities threatened by 
river erosion? How can Bangladesh make urbanization poor friendly?
 
It is urgent to 
find answers to these and related other questions. A national 
brainstorming is necessary for this purpose, and the proposed conference
 is being organized to facilitate such an exercise.
 

 
The general aim 
of this conference is to analyze the urbanization crisis that Bangladesh
 faces and arrive at an effective integrated solution of this crisis 
with special attention to traffic and transportation problems. To this 
end, the conference sets before itself the following concrete 
objectives:
 
1.
 Identify the main problems of urbanization in Bangladesh and classify 
these problems in accordance to the size and nature of cities and towns 
of the country;
 
2.
 Investigate and reveal the interconnections among different problems of
 urbanization with special importance given to transportation and 
communication problems;
 
3. Reveal the connection between urbanization problems and the national development strategy;
 
4. Consider the relevant international urbanization and transportation experience and derive its lessons for Bangladesh;
 
5.
 Formulate an integrated and effective urbanization and transportation 
strategy, distinguishing its long-run and short run policy implications.
 
 

 
To achieve its 
aim and objectives, the conference will strive to bring together all who
 are involved with urbanization problems and the efforts to resolve 
them. Among them will be
 
1. Resident Bangladeshi, non-resident Bangladeshi, and foreign experts on various urbanization issues;
 
2. Representative of various city and township authorities (corporations, councils,Pourashavas, etc.);
 
3. 
Representatives of government ministries, directorates, authorities, 
agencies, and corporations concerned with urbanization issues;
 
4. Representatives of political parties;
 
5. Representatives of various concerned citizens’ organizations;
 
6. Representatives of various business associations involved with urbanization;
 
7. Representatives of various labor and professional association involved with urbanization;.
 
8. Representatives of various NGOs and CSOs concerned with urbanization;
 
9. Representatives from district and upazilla towns;
 
10. Other citizens and residents of cities and towns.
 
 

 
Conforming to BAPA-BEN tradition, this conference too will have a dual format, comprised of the following two types of sessions:
 
Expert Sessions, where papers by experts on different urbanization issues will be presented and discussed; and
 
General Sessions,
 where no written papers will be presented and instead representatives 
of city and town authorities, different urban related policy making and 
implementing agencies, political parties, business organizations, 
professional and labor organizations, NGOs and CSOs, and other 
participants will present their experience and views.
 
In addition, 
there will be the Opening and Closing sessions and the Strategy session 
where the resolutions of the conference will be adopted.
 
Apart from the sessions above, the conference will have many other components. There will also be many pre-conference events.
 
 

 
The specific topics of the conference will include the following:
 
Urbanization: Crisis and Prospects
Current trends in urbanization in Bangladesh and future projections
Urbanization crisis and Bangladesh development strategy
            Dispersed urbanization in Bangladesh: prospects and problems
                       
Urbanization and Disasters
Possibility of earthquakes and preparedness
Natural and urban flooding 
Urban fire hazard and preparedness
 
Urbanization and Environment
Urbanization and parks, gardens, and open spaces
Urbanization and air, water, and soil pollution
 
Urbanization and Water
Urbanization and the approach to rivers
Urbanization, water-logging, and flooding
            Urbanization and wetlands
 
Urbanization and Transportation
Traffic jam and congestion problems
Public and freight transport and communications modes: road, railway, waterway, etc.
The special role of biking in Bangladesh urbanization
The special role of walking in Bangladesh urbanization
           
Urbanization, Housing, and Settlement Pattern
                        Reorganization of rural settlement pattern and reducing rural-urban divide
                        Urban housing and land market
                        Housing need, economy, and affordability
 
            Urbanization and Population
                        Population growth and urbanization
Rural-urban migration
           
Urbanization and the poor
            Urban land, transportation and utility policy and the urban poor
            Special problems of the slums
Urban economic and settlement growth and the poor
Strategy and policies for pro-poor urbanization
 
            Urbanization and basic utility services
Urbanization and water supply
Urbanization and sewerage
            Urbanization and electricity supply
            Urbanization and industrial waste
            Urbanization and household waste
            Urbanization and medical waste
            Urbanization and electronic waste
 
Urbanization and Governance
                        Urbanization and city and town governance issues
                        Institutional morphology, distribution and empowerment issues
Relative roles of the public and private sectors in urbanization
Role of private developers and housing construction companies
                        Role of RAJUK as regulator and developer
 
Special problems of urbanization
            Special problems of divisional cities
            Special problems of port cities
            Special problems of district towns
            Special problems of upazilla townships
            Special problems of cities and towns facing river erosion
           
Urbanization, Planning, and Building Codes
            Dhaka Master Plan and Detailed Area Plan (DAP)
            Building codes and rules
            Conservation and heritage issues
 
Lessons from international urbanization experience
            Lessons from developed countries
            Lessons from successful developing countries of East Asia
            Lessons from neighboring countries and regions, including India and West Bengal
 
 

 
 

 
As part of the process, a Conference Organizing Committee(COC) with Prof. Muzaffer Ahmed and Architect Iqbal Habib, Cell phone: 01711520337, e-mail: <iqbalvitti at gmail.com>, as the Chairman and Member Secretary respectively has meanwhile started to work for  the preparation for the conference.  
 
Conference secretariat
For further information, please contact the conference secretariat below:
 
Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA)
9/12 Block D, Lalmatia, Dhaka 1207
Tel. 812-8024, Fax: 8113469, E-mail: bapa2000 at gmail.com
web site: www.bapa.org.bd -- 
I Q B A L   H A B I B 



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Syed Saiful alam
shovan1209 at yahoo.com
+8801552442814