Abstract—Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh is the 20th megacity is now the home for over 15 million people. Housing problem for this vast population has become one of the major concerns for this fastest growing mostly unplanned (73% fully unplanned) megacity of the world. To reduce the pressure of population of Dhaka to a great extent by developing the surrounding area of Dhaka city in a planned way and establishing permanent residence for these vast population two projects were commenced. Purbachal New Town, the biggest planned township of the country and Uttara 3rd phase. Planning of these satellite towns lacks the provisions of introducing modern, futuristic amenities and misses out the concept of sustainable city. In this paper the present major drawbacks of the Dhaka city as it faces due to an unplanned densely populated urban area are pointed out. And along with that the provisions that the new satellite town missed out in their planning are identified. Also modern similar developments around the world are considered and in that regard position of the ongoing new towns are scrutinized. A set of recommendations is provided to make the best use of the available resources, and use our learning from the mistakes that have been made by our progenitor in planning the Dhaka city.
Index Terms—Dhaka, housing, megacity, sustainable, unplanned.
Md. Mehedi Hasnat is with Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh (e-mail: hasnatmehedi@ gmail.com).
Md. Shamsul Hoque is with the Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka- 1000, Bangladesh (e-mail: shoque@ce.buet.ac.bd).
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Cite: Md. Mehedi Hasnat and Md. Shamsul Hoque, "Developing Satellite Towns: A Solution to Housing Problem or Creation of New Problems," International Journal of Engineering and Technology vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 50-56, 2016.
