Liveability and vitality: an exploration of small cities in Bangladesh
Date
2022-12-26
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsvier
Abstract
This paper presents a mixed method, participatory exploration of liveability as a stocktaking assessment with
projections for urban vitality in cities, particularly in LMIC, small cities. The paper takes as its case study research
conducted in 2019 and 2020 in Mongla and Noapara, south west Bangladesh. This paper illustrates firstly, the
possibilities for the concept of liveability to produce nuanced, granular understandings of how small cities such
as Mongla and Noapara function and are experienced by residents: how residents negotiate social processes,
power relations, and access to resources that shape their everyday living. Secondly, the paper considers how
liveability enables assessments of a city’s vitality in the present and its potential vitality in the future: how cities
might cope and develop in the face of rapid urbanization, chronic difficulties, and acute crises. This research
combines work in under-researched LMIC small cities, practical research towards more nuanced and socially just
deployment of the notion of ‘urban liveability’ and urban vitalist discourse to argue for a people centred urbanism for the future.
Description
Keywords
Small cities || Liveability || Vitalism || LMICs|| Bangladesh || Mixed methods