Urban ecotone: restoring the water-land balance as a strategy for social equity

This thesis focuses on Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the urban interface between the more formal developed parts of the city and the less-formal and more economically-vulnerable urban neighborhoods. It seeks to reframe this interface as an ‘ecotone’ versus a hard boundary. By reframing this area along ecological lines, this interface is positioned as a place with a great diversity of ‘species’ and fertile conditions and collisions, which allow it to act as a generator of new opportunities benefitting both of the communities (biomes) which transition into it. This ecotone is seen as being further fed by the presence of urban ecology and open space. Together, in their dynamic state of interactions, these three conditions or communities are understood as a new starting point – a catalyst – for the city of the future, one where each community has a place but where vitality, sustainability, and opportunity lie in the zone of overlap and integration. The purpose of this thesis is to make the public aware that each community, even the informal one, has its uniqueness and is valuable to be defended and to find a manageable balance on shared resources among all these communities. At the same time, benefits could be received by all relevant communities in contemporary and future urbanization