Problem, that’s not a problem! Urban planningSri Lanka lacks a proper scientific definition of the urban sector, and urban planning remains minimal. As a result, most people continue to live in rural areas, tied to farming communities with limited opportunities for upward mobility. The irony is that China saw the excessive concentration of people in the rural areas as a development problem and initiated policy measures to address it at source. We in Sri Lanka never saw it as a development problem so that we struggle to find answers to development, poverty issues and environmental hazards on the shallow surface.

Source: Sunday Times December 27, 2025 20:04 UTC