After more than a decade of meeting the designated objective of increasing productivity in agriculture, the South West coastal polders of Bangladesh have ended up as different man-made disasters. The failure of the polders to deliver the intended outcome is basically attributed to the lack of understanding of their hydro-morphologic al characteristics, inadequacy i n their operation and maintenance, and failure to take into account their social relationship and culture roles. Changes in socioeconomic settings have also forced changes in the designated functions of the polders, but now the emerging context of climate change has become a major issue in rationalizing the coastal polders. In this context, this study is an attempt to review the historical and ongoing process of rationalization of the South West coastal polders, revealing that it is essential to take an integrated view of the hydrologic cycle and the interactions of human interventions. Finally, this paper recommends that an extended cost– benefit analysis with a m ulti-objective focus or a multi-criteria analysis, if monetizing is not possible, should be an option in rationalizing this multi-functional infrastructure. Proper macro-planning would require development of an institution capable of dealing with a task which is multi-dimensional and multidisciplinary in nature.

This article is based on a study of the morphological changes of Dhaka City, the capital of Bangladesh. The main objective of the research is to study the transformation of urban morphology in Dhaka City from 1947 to 2007. Three sample wards (18, 19 and 72) of Dhaka City Corporation are strategically selected as the study areas. Ward 72 has an indigenous type of organic settlement, whereas ward 19 is a planned area, and ward 18 represents a mixed (both planned and informal) type of settlement. In this research, the transformation of urban settlement pattern is examined through space syntax. The results show that the organic settlements (ward 72) are highly integrated both in terms of the local and global syntactic measures (lowest standard deviation for local and global integration, with the highest intelligibility values), and are more connectivity. The scenario is opposite in the case of planned settlements. The characteristics of mixed areas (ward 18) lie in between the organic and planned settlements. Therefore, in summary, it can be stated that the integration, connectivity and intelligibility measures of Dhaka City are found to be high, medium and low for the indigenous, mixed and planned settlement types; respectively.

As rural areas lack proper facilities and services, people tend to migrate to urban areas in hope of better standard of life. This causes various problems in urban areas. These problems can only be reduced if sufficient facilities are provided in the rural areas. This study attempts to find out the facilities and services required by both the local and non-local people living in the rural areas. The findings from the study are based on data collected through questionnaire surveys. The surveys were conducted separately for the local and non-local respondents. The findings reflect the level of satisfaction of people with various facilities. Also it reflects the priority of services and facilities that are the most required by the local and non-local respondents. A lot of variation was revealed regarding requirements of the local and non-local people among the five districts (Moulvibazar, Bogra, Bagerhat, Pabna, Kishoregonj) under inspection. The study attempts to analyze the underlying reasons behind these variations. Based on the analyses, the study recommends some important facilities that should be provided to keep the people away from moving to major cities. If facilities and services of priority are provided then people will find the places more comfortable for living and the interest to migrate will reduce.

This paper investigates relationship between the distribution patterns of the schools and the human development index value of the respective study areas. In this study 50 upazilas have been selected out of 460 upazilas in Bangladesh. The distribution patterns of the primary and high school in each selected upazila have been analyzed through the “Nearest Neighbor Analysis” method. Then the value of Human Development Index (HDI) for each upazila has been determined. Finally a positive correlation between those two indices has been determined. This research can assist the policy makers to take proper decisions while selecting locations for schools keeping the broad view in mind which is development of that particular area.