Bangladesh, Sept. 18 -- Anyone travelling along Mawa Road towards the Padma Bridge can see how easily the language of progress is being used to disguise a serious national risk. Signboards announce model towns, planned communities and future residential estates. But look beyond them and the promise collapses: no homes, no roads, no drainage, no utilities and no sign of an emerging neighbourhood-only farmland being prepared for speculation. A board may change the price of land, but it does not build housing. Bangladesh must confront the uncomfortable truth: too much of what is being sold as urban development is little more than farmland conversion with a marketing budget.

Land Under Pressure

Bangladesh has no surplus land to gamble with....