Amazing Dhaka :: by mama

I don't normally blog about random Internet articles, but this one just begs to be shared.  It's an article about Dhaka as an extreme example of urbanization.  Maybe this is of interest to nobody but me, Chris, and my brother (the future city planner, who should have spent his semester abroad studying Dhaka instead of eating cheese in France).   Still, I just have to share some highlights:

• Dhaka could be the most inconveniently placed urban area in the world, even worse than New Orleans. The urban area sits on the world’s largest river delta, the Ganges – Brahmaputra Delta.
• The urban area is the world’s most dense, having recently passed Hong Kong. Covering a land area of little more than 100 square miles, Dhaka’s population density is now approaching in excess of 100,000 per square mile (40,000 per square kilometer). At that density, the New York urban area would accommodate all of the population of the United States and Mexico. 
• There is a single north to south thoroughfare through the whole urban area. Needless to say, ... Dhaka’s traffic is horrific.
• Population densities in the slums have been reported as high as 4,200 per acre, which converts to more than 2,500,000 per square mile or more than 1,000,000 per square kilometer. At that density, the population of the world could be accommodated in the Tokyo-Yokohama urban area, leaving 10 percent of the land for open space.

I'm not sure what to say about this.  I knew the situation here was bad, but I didn't realize it was this bad.  Honestly, I don't think we have any concept of how bad it really is, living in our little expat-y neighborhood with the single-family homes and the American Club nearby.  Still, the overcrowding and traffic problems are obvious to anyone in this city, no matter where they live.  And yet, we choose to stay on here, in our adopted home.  Ah, Dhaka.

[Update: I just ran across this other article that talks about another of Dhaka's geographic challenges: the fact that it is located "dangerously close to a major fault line."  Buildings here are not built to withstand earthquakes, so the article says that "almost 80,000 buildings would be destroyed if a six magnitude tremor originated beneath Dhaka, according to a government study."  Is there anything that is not working against this place?]