Solutions needed to deal with rapid urbanisation

Like other developing countries, the speed of urbanisation in Myanmar is fast-forwarding and posing a number of challenges ranging from infrastructure to proper housing, panellists at a summit said.

At the Myanmar Construction Summit 2014, Moe Thida, assistant Director at the Ministry of Construction’s Department of Human Settlement and Housing Development, admitted that there are many challenges the government is facing.

“We lack an integrated urban plan, a land use plan, a housing plan, and an urban services plan [and that may] hinder the proper housing development. We lack the legal basis for the government to monitor and intervene in unused and underused land, unoccupied and incomplete buildings, to justify the sales price of private developers.”

According to the CIA Factbook, 32.6 per cent of Myanmar’s 60 million population lived in urban areas as of 2011. During 2010-2015, the rate is estimated to grow by 2.49 per cent per annum. 

Moe Thida also stated that the steep rise in land prices and lack of urban land management policy prevents provision of large- scale cost management and affordable housing. 

“We need to industrialise the provision of decent and safe housing for underprivileged people. Our ministry is also implementing the low-cost housing projects for middle- and low-income people.

“Now, we are still in the restructuring stage to provide better services and also to serve as a regulator for the implementation of regional and private sectors,” she added, emphasising that the Ministry has been inviting private sector participation in housing provision system since 1990.

Much is to be done as the urban population size will continue to grow sharply. 

“Yangon is the most populous city in the country and it is the home of six million people. And we would like to decentralise this pressure. That’s why we will introduce the two-polar development concept,” she added.

Under the concept, Yangon’s role as the economic centre would be reduced, while Mandalay in the North would enjoy the position as the economic centre in the North. Under this plan, while Yangon’s size would be maintained, Mandalay will enjoy bigger outskirts.

“Unlike Mandalay, for Yangon, we did not propose to enlarge the outskirts areas because we already extended Yangon region up to 200 square kilometres after 1990. It is enough already, and we suppose that we need to change our strategy to the upgrading of the existing settlement area because we cannot provide the transportation network system efficiently,” she said.

To Suzuki Masahiko, urban development adviser at Yangon City Development Committee, a transport master plan study for the city could prepare the city for the bigger population concentration.

“The master plan is definitely a work in progress. It is based on the urban development plan,” said Masahiko, adding that the Japanese government and Japan International Cooperation Agency is helping the Thein Sein administration with urban development of the country.

It is estimated that nearly 40 per cent of the world’s urban population was concentrated in developing countries in 1950 and this is predicted to reach 80 per cent in 2030, indicating that rapid urbanisation can be expected to continue in these countries.