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Welcome to the Resource Disk on
“Green
Cities: Plan for the Planet!”
on the occasion of
the World Environment Day, June 5, 2005.
Urbanisation is the inexorable demographic trend the world over
and is certainly one of the strongest social force shaping economy,
polity and society. However, as with other such societal forces,
this has both a pleasant face and a seamier underside. Urban areas
are centres of art and culture, learning and knowledge as well as
major consuming points of energy, food and other commodities. And of
course, these are also centres of commerce and constitute the pulse
of the economy. No wonder, therefore, that people flock in great
numbers to cities and towns, for bettering their economic lot, for
education, for fun and what not.
While cities have natural growth through births and deaths of the
city population, rural-urban migration remain the major component of
urban population growth during its first phase till the cross-over
point to predominance of natural growth begins. In whatever manner
urbanization takes place and for whatever purpose, the fact remains
that these are geographical focal points of highly concentrated
pools of human beings. As a result, the production, processing and
consumption activities within the cities and towns puts tremendous
burden on the assimilative power of nature. As a result, high levels
of pollution had been the fate of all great cities of the past. That
is also the situation in the many of the cities of the world today,
particularly those in the developing countries and LDCs such as
Bangladesh. It is highly appropriate therefore that the theme chosen
for this year’s World Environment Day is “Green Cities: Plan for the
Planet”.
Every year during the past few years, Sustainable Development
Networking Programme (SDNP), component 4.4.5 of Sustainable
Environment Management Programme (SEMP), under the Ministry of
Environment and Forest (MoEF), supported by the UNDP and implemented
by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) has
released an information-packed Resource Disk on the theme of the
World Environment Day for that year. Four such disks have been
released in the past as well as one on the Millennium Development
Goals. This year too SDNP keeping with its tradition is releasing
the Volume 6 of the Resource Disk on this year’s theme.
The Resource Disk is divided into two parts, the first part
relates to the global and regional issues on urbanization. These are
arranged based on the sub-themes under the broader theme. The latest
World habitat Report 2004 is included as well as the past one for
2001. The second part relates exclusively to Bangladesh. These
materials have been culled partly from SDNP’s own resources in its
website under the Sustainable Development Information (SDI) heading,
partly taken from materials available elsewhere and partly collected
specifically for this purpose. For example, we have tried to provide
some of the old maps and also certain parts of the Building Codes
for Bangladesh to which one hears references but few so far had easy
access to them.
SDNP gratefully acknowledges the support of the MoEF, the PMU of
SEMP, the UNDP and the BIDS for the encouragements received all
along these years and for preparing the Resource Disk. The help of
the National Archives in allowing SDNP to reproduce some of the old
maps has been invaluable. As in the previous years, the Disk shall
be an integral part of the SDNP information and available in its web
site. Recommendations for any improvement of the data base is
welcome.
M. Asaduzzaman, Ph.D.
Research Director, BIDS &
Project Director, SDNP |
