Unit 5 (City Living)

Time to learn some lessons from the Bangkok floods
With the world watching in dismay as the flooding, disruption and human suffering in Bangkok increased over the last few weeks.A city once famous for its extensive network of canals, known locally as khlongs, Bangkok had long since been filled over to make way for an ever-expanding network of roads in this rapidly modernising city of 12 million people.Across the developing world, the pressure on cities to build new industrial, commercial, residential and transport infrastructure has often relegated social and environmental risks and vulnerabilities to the background. While ignoring these perils may have been politically expedient or economically justifiable in the past, the onset of rapid urbanisation and climate change compel us to adopt a radically different approach for the future.


In that respect, Bangkok can also serve as a model for cities across Asia, which over the next 20 years will account for 60% of the growth in global population, while also experiencing rising temperatures, less predictable and more concentrated rainfall patterns, increasingly intense storms and a rising sea level. This combination of unprecedented growth and ecological change will generate a host of new challenges, the responses to which will require innovations and new types of partnerships.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/272268/time-to-learn-some-lessons-from-the-bangkok-floods