In this blog, Dr Hanna Ruszczyk from Durham University explores what liveability means for urban residents in Bangladesh. The research was funded by SHLC’s Capacity Development Acceleration Fund and you can learn more about this research project at our upcoming online seminar on 16 June. The views in this article are those of the author and not attributable to SHLC.
As the COVID19 global pandemic plunges countries into lengthier lockdowns our appreciation of our space, and how we work in, and live in, that space, has become omnipresent. So, then, what makes a city liveable? What, specifically, makes your city liveable?
From time to time, there is an academic resurgence of interest resulting in sophisticated, critical analysis and review of the concept of liveability. Meanwhile, there has been an academic deficit in trying to understand liveability from the perspective of urban residents, particularly those in overlooked regional cities of the world.
I firmly believe that we need to rethink the underlying purpose and politics of liveability. We need to move to a qualitative perspective, grounded in lived experience, which the majority of the urban world’s population can relate to. Here is why. A better understanding of liveability can show us what everyday life is truly like for residents. We have the opportunity to make our everyday life as experienced by residents more concrete and legible and subsequently to offer possibilities for rethinking policies that govern the life of people in cities throughout the world.
If we understand liveability to mean a place “suitable to live in, enjoyable to live in [NOW]” then we must attempt to understand the economic, social and cultural context of the city or neighbourhood we are studying. When I first thought about the concept of liveability, I thought it might be a way to hear people’s views about the cities they live in. Based on all the literature I read, I thought liveability could be possibly comprised of eight spheres: livelihoods and food security, utilities and transport, health and natural environment, education, housing, central and local government, safety and security and lastly social and leisure aspects of life.
Through the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC)’s Capacity Development Acceleration Fund, and together with two other early career researchers, Alex Halligey from the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa and Feisal Rahman from the research centre, International Centre for Climate Change and Development, Bangladesh, we designed a research project to explore what liveability means in two smaller regional cities in Bangladesh. The project, which we will present at an upcoming online seminar on 16 June, focused on an interdisciplinary exploration of Mongla and Noapara, two regional cities impacted by disasters and climate change.
Mongla has a population of 106,000 and is located in the far south-western part of Bangladesh. It is adjacent to the world’s largest mangrove forest – the Sundarban which shares a border with India. Based on interviews with government officials, stakeholders and residents, Mongla can be described as a city that is on the verge of change from a sleepy city to a city that will become of significant national importance.
Noapara has a population of 170,000 and is located north of Khulna in the southwestern part of Bangladesh. It is an important transportation junction with a national transportation road, an international railway linked to India and the Bhairav River at Noapara connects Noapara to Chittagong (located in the south-east of Bangladesh). There is a strong relationship between the urban, peri-urban and rural in the Noapara area. There are over 100,000 daily labourers who travel to Noapara for work.
Using multiple interdisciplinary tools such as surveys, interviews and storytelling workshops, we listened to the views of middle-class people, and residents in informal settlements, government officials and stakeholders in the two target cities.
Exploring the concept of Liveability revealed the complexity of life – it means different things to people based on their intersectionality of gender, education and income levels and other factors. What I learnt was that some of the spheres were more important than others, but some spheres were just not that important at all. This was a bit surprising. I had thought the social aspects of the city would be more important than they were to residents.
From 200 surveys with middle income and informal settlement dwellers, I learnt the four most important factors for liveability are housing, utilities, livelihoods, as well as safety and security in the cities.
- For the middle-class survey residents, education for their children is a particularly important aspect of liveability for them.
- In contrast to the survey, where the questions were designed by us academics, storytelling workshops provided residents an opportunity and creative freedom to communicate issues that were important to them. From the storytelling workshops, I learnt that women believe marrying at a young age puts them and their children at a distinct disadvantage of their husbands leaving them and then remarrying. Many people expressed similar experiences and opinions on key issues. On the subject of freshwater, a person from Mongla said, “If we had fresh water, we wouldn’t have any issues to complain about”, which was echoed by almost all the interviewees.
- In Noapara one middle-class resident’s optimistic assessment of Noapara was similarly echoed by all the residents and stakeholders involved in this research: “Noapara will be way better in ten years”.
Overall, in spite of difficulties in the city, people in both cities loved their city. Reflecting on residents’ own views of liveability within the overall challenging situation they face in terms of water access, environmental destruction and very difficult working environments shows the complexity of life in regional cities.
What makes a city liveable for you, might not be the same as what makes a city liveable for me. This interdisciplinary interpretation of the concept of liveability shows us we must let go of our preconceived notions of there being one liveable city and work towards a deeper understanding of multiple lived realities of what is needed to make a city truly liveable for all residents.
Find out more about the concept of a liveable city at our upcoming online seminar on 16 June.
If you would like to learn even more about the liveable regional cities project or to discuss the concept of liveability, please contact me at h.a.ruszczyk@durham.ac.uk