Hazards of living in big and modern cities
Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed, Former Deputy Director General and Commandant, Ansar VDP Academy :
All over the world, the great cities are in trouble with the problem of how to deal with large urban concentrations. It is a problem which besets not only the advanced countries, but also affects all areas with dense populations and consequently, large cities.
The City of Dreadful Night and the City of Joy are titles of two literary works which provide contrasting pictures of the modern city. Dickens on his Hard Times called a modern industrial city Coke town with “smoke continuously overcastting the sky and the noise choking the air.” Priestley has described a modern city in his brilliant essay Too Many People. Life in a modern city is full of hazards and pains. One cannot make one’s way through the seething, teeming crowd of people. In buses, trains, restaurants and theatres, people scramble for seats. The streets are so crowded, people have to jostle and push and elbow their way. Then there are the jabbering crowd of commuters, vendors, beggars and vagabonds. It is hell, thick with the horrid host of ‘fallen angels’ who turned devils – hostile and unfriendly and sometimes go berserk.
The day-to-day routine of urban existence creates tremendous strain on the body and the mind. Muscles are continuously strained by sitting or standing in abnormal way. Hazards of living are both hidden and manifest. Strain of very living is coupled with insecurities and uncertainties of life. With living space decreasing in contrast with the vast demands, one room apartments for most middle class families have become more a compulsive compromise than an exception. Open space for plays and recreations is gradually shrinking. The stifling atmosphere of congested area huddled with close ranging houses provides a nightmarish ordeal for the city dwellers. The city pavements are haven for the homeless; the sordidness and shabbiness of the surroundings have the potential dangers of fatal diseases. There are slums and ghettos which offer risks, humiliation and accidental or intentional fires.
Physical hazards apart, the emotional strain is intolerable. Individuals in a modern city are isolated isotopes working with mechanical efficiency. They are reduced to being a robot having no will or initiative of their own. Economic liberalization and technological progress seek to make life comfortable, but the complexities incidental to the progress make life more and more feverous, fretful and weary. Children are asked to participate in the race of life and they are robbed of their spontaneous urges and natural joys of life. Men and women are lost and confused in the glitter and glamour of the artificial world in which they elect to live. Writers, poets and singers find for their subjects sickness and sexuality, distress and decay. The city is the paradigm of modern predicament and precarious existence. Delight and despair, hope and fear are ambiguous feelings that cause disturbing distortions of city life and are manifested in the merciless murders, mindless masochism, distressing sadism, drug-addiction, vandalism, communal carnage and all sorts of corruptions. These are the inalienable corollaries of modern urban life.
The problems of city dwellers in Bangladesh lead to untold miseries. These problems must be solved with modern and scientific measures. The issues of urbanization are very important and challenging for Bangladesh. This requires judicious policies and right planning at the right time. Otherwise, we will not be able to get the minimum benefits from urban area. Although the government has the main responsibility on these issues, we too have to play some part. All of us must be sincere in tackling the urban problems.