Abstract

Gwadar, a small fishing town, is situated in the southwest of Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Gwadar city and its port are being developed by Pakistan and Chinese counterparts respectively as one of the hubs of the Belt and Road Initiative and China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

This policy paper proposes measures to improve city governance, urban design and preservation of local culture and heritage of Gwadar city. The paper draws on field work, review of international cases of success and failure of new economic cities and interviews of key policymakers undertaken for a recent study titled “The Institutional and Urban Design of Gwadar City”. Immediate action is required to improve the governance of Gwadar city in order to realize the potential of the new port and economic activities underway in Gwadar.

Key words: New Economic City, Port City, Urban Governance, Urban Design, Urban Culture

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Image source: Hydespes’ Lightbox

When one hears anything negative about “Peshawar” these days, the first thing that might come to mind is the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project. Previously, it would have been terrorism.The unanimous verdict is that BRT is a mess. There is debate over whether the city even needed it. There is an opinion, especially shared by car owners, that widening of roads was the best option to ease the traffic flow, and this is still seen as a symbol of development. Others believe BRT would help the poor, but there is concern over the bus fares being costlier than the existing transport arrangements. There are also apprehensions over the design itself. On visiting the area of Saddar, the massive BRT overhead structure appears to be crashing over the bustling roads. Earlier, a piece of concrete actually broke off from the structure.

The provincial government spent precious resources beautifying the city through planting trees and building infrastructure only to be supplanted by a concrete monstrosity in the middle of the multi lane road. This has narrowed the lanes for traffic and has given rise to traffic jams – an enduring legacy of this project. The idea of creating a bicycle track along the entire corridor, a welcome initiative, now seems unlikely, given the crammed space.

For women in Peshawar, mobility remains a major issue. Few women are seen outside, and that too on the backseats of the vehicles, avoiding prying eyes on the street. More of them are seen flocking in the small bazaars in the heart of Saddar, but seldom on the main roads. Once when I asked my father to take me to the walled city, I was told that “it is not a place for women”.  There is noticeable class disparity in the city that defines the experiences and opportunities for women.  It is not uncommon to see women belonging to wealthier families roaming about the posh branded shops in the town locality.

Overall, the city lacks a vibrant public life. There are very few public parks – existing ones being poorly maintained and overly crowded. There are hardly any public libraries, or spaces for creative activities. The community in Peshawar, though closely-knit; has seldom channelled these community ties for development of the city. The people of Peshawar are emotionally attached to it, but this love rarely translates into civic responsibility.

The town side of the city gives a good glance into the evolving business culture of the city. This area has seen massive development recently and has limited space to expand further. The trend is moving to establishment of high street brands and cafes closer to Hayatabad. These may seem modern, but are in fact quite shallow, benefiting the select elite of the city who own these properties and franchises. Apart from these, the employment and business opportunities in the city are scarce. The city is underdeveloped in terms of having a thriving business culture. For young students and graduates, finding an internship or job in Peshawar often proves to be a daunting challenge.

The older end of the city, housing the great remnants of ancient civilizations, gives a glimpse of Peshawar’s great history. Having lived all my life in Peshawar, I was shocked to discover only recently that it is one of the oldest living cities in the world. This is because our heritage has not been cherished and is rotting away in front of our eyes. A few of the historical structures, like the Sethi House and Bala Hissar fort, are somewhat maintained, but accessibility is an issue; Sethi house is located in the walled city, where women cannot comfortably travel, and the Bala Hissar fort houses the Frontier Constabulary Headquarters. Besides that, the ancient gates and other undocumented buildings of the walled city are deteriorating every day. Our history is unbelievably rich, from the Chowk Yadgaar to Gor Ghatri; however, there have been no concerted efforts to maintain and document these, let alone capitalizing on them as sites for learning history, tourist attractions, and revenue generation.

Despite a painful recent history, peace has returned to Peshawar. The city, however, seems to be stuck in a limbo between the old and new times. The capitalist culture is penetrating it in a fragmentary manner, as international franchises are coming up and an increasing number of people vying for opportunities and mobility. The youth of the city seems promising – young people are increasingly going out of city for education and work, while some are starting new businesses in the city. Better organization will, indeed, help them flourish. The National Incubation Centre Peshawar, for instance, was recently established to cater to the growing entrepreneurial aspirations of the people. But overall, there is a lingering preference for the old, small-town lifestyle. Peshawar does not seem to want to participate in the capitalistic rat race, seeking comfort in its old traditions. It has an immense potential to develop itself into a modern 21st century city, by capitalizing on its revered cultural and history, rather than letting them go.

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Wajeeha Amir is a rising senior at LUMS, studying political science and public administration. She has a keen interest in urban planning and wishes to play her part in bringing meaningful change to her hometown.

The post Peshawar, The City of Flowers & Failures: Musings of a Citizen first appeared on Learners’ Republic.

Summary
Around the globe, capital cities are leading the way in implementing innovative solutions to the rising challenges of urbanization.

Islamabad is the capital of a rapidly urbanizing nation of over 220 million people. Therefore, Pakistani cities naturally look towards Islamabad to lead the way in policy and sustainable change. Bolstered by the current political and social will, the city has recently displayed an appetite and demand for healthy solutions to ongoing mobility challenges. Moreover, the unique changes to urban life brought about by COVID-19 have highlighted the need for alternative and safe modes of personal transport around the city.

This cycling strategy outlines the importance of behavioral change initiatives and awareness campaigns encouraging and mainstreaming non-motorized short distance travel within the city. The awareness campaigns will specifically focus on the challenges faced by women and children. The frequency of short distance travel by cars can be mitigated by promoting and facilitating alternative modes of travel such as walking and cycling. Islamabad can prevent traffic congestion by improving upon its existing network of sidewalks and by developing more lanes for cycling. The city can improve its urban landscape, mobility and environment by making much needed improvements to its public spaces.

This document outlines a four pronged approach: Behavioral change, infrastructure measures, policy and legislative measures, and the creation of sectoral level jobs and opportunities. This cycling strategy document also presents necessary diagrams, maps, a detailed action plan, and timeline thereby simplifying the implementation process for the city administration. The subsequent strategy paper will based on reviving the cycle manufacturing industry in Pakistan.

Intrinsic to the success of the Islamabad Cycling Strategy is multi-stakeholder collaboration and coordination. Without the willingness of both the public and private sector to work together to enact positive change in Islamabad, this strategy and similar efforts will be in vain.

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Visual art by Fatima Laraib, illustrating the right to the city actualised by Pakistani women

Having grown accustomed to the pervasive class and gender-based inequalities, often reflected in the design of our cities, we have also begun to understand our cities as neutral entities, as structures made from brick and concrete. This illusion of cities being independent from its people is at the root of several urban challenges we see today.

In Pakistan, cities are not democratically accessible to their residents, only servicing a select few who groups of people – the economically well to do. There are clear disparities to be seen within Karachi, the largest metropolitan hub in the country. Among the many issues that plague the city, the most pressing one is the increasing cost of living, leading to marked disparity, especially among young people who can now be placed in the dichotomy of the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ Those with generational wealth can afford to live and thrive in the city, renting apartments and houses at exorbitant rates, while young people from middle class backgrounds scramble to keep up with the ludicrously expensive real estate.

The state has evidently failed with regards to providing affordable and safe housing to its citizens, and those, from the civil society, who attempted to do the job had to pay heavily for it. Parveen Rehman, the prominent social activist who spearheaded the Orangi Pilot Project, was assassinated in 2013, most likely on account of her efforts to provide dignified housing to those living in poverty. The disparity she sought to counteract has only grown worse in recent years, with the forced evictions of street vendors in Saddar, who had occupied the same area for years, if not decades prior. This attempt to ‘sanitize’ the city by hiding its poor populace caters to the ideals of modern aestheticism. Sleek roads and buildings are not the way forward. We need to invest in healthcare, education and other fundamental rights to be made accessible to the entire population. Our present fixation with megaprojects and megacities thoroughly detracts from the ever-pressing concern that is the degrading quality of life for city residents.

New housing projects for the elite, or the beautification of round-abouts, do very little to address the central concerns that residents are being faced with on a day to day basis. We must channel resources where they are needed the most: not in superficial attempts to make cities look “cleaner” or the aesthetically-guided revivals of dilapidated buildings. Need of the moment is to provide citizens with their fundamental rights which, according to David Harvey, are possessed by every individual who makes a contribution in society regardless of their class, caste, gender or religion. It is ironic, that while Karachi runs on the labor of working-class women, immigrants and the youth, none of them are accounted for in the structure of the city. Anyone who has visited Karachi can attest that the city’s transport system and infrastructure caters predominantly to the affluent car owners: roads are widened every few years to accommodate the growing number of private vehicles, yet no attempts are made to improve public transport even though it facilitates most frontline or daily wage workers. Karachi’s abysmal infrastructure came to light during the monsoon rains of 2020, which devastated the entire city, particularly those areas that housed the working class. Yet, most attention was given to the Defence Housing Authority (DHA). Improperly built sewage and drainage systems led to flooding in arguably the wealthiest part of the city and therefore were majorly covered by the media. This not only exposed massive infrastructure flaws, but also the elitist nature of the city, which defies the very notion of a democratic ownership.

Now, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, our lack of investment in infrastructure, housing and healthcare has become embarrassingly clear. Overcrowding in slums and informal settlements has meant that the virus can spread like wildfire because these are areas that the state deemed unworthy of investment. Even before the onset of COVID-19, the poor were disproportionately affected by elitist policies and urban planning. There are no walkways that can cater to pedestrians, no hospitals in the vicinity of low-income areas, no infrastructure to deal with monsoon rains or even routine rainfall. It is disgraceful for us, as citizens, to confront the treatment of our urban-poor, whose collective efforts are the reason this city- and all cities- stay afloat.

The city, like the country, is home to everyone who inhabits it. If we were to map David Harvey’s understanding of what it means for residents to stake their claim in their cities onto Pakistan, we would realize how far we are from achieving such cities. A city to which everyone has an equal right is nearly inconceivable for the reasons stated above, and due to the fact that we cater only to those we deem worthy: not women, not the young, not the elderly, and certainly not the differently abled.

This does not have to be our reality. According to Jane Jacobs, in saving our city, we have the power to save ourselves. The pandemic has made it abundantly clear that access to healthcare, food, sanitation, transport and housing is a human right, not a right one must “earn”. Existence in itself entitles one to a life of dignity. This is the standard we must adopt if we wish to save our cities andby extension- ourselves.

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Mahnoor Khan is pursuing a history major at LUMS and holds an interest in urban planning.

Asiya Syed is an anthropology/sociology student at LUMS with a keen interest in the histories of people and places.

The post The Right to the City in Karachi first appeared on Learners’ Republic.

Cities are complex systems, defined as engines of growth that serve as the basis of economic development and prosperity (Duranton, 2009); a framework of agglomeration/polarization with its allied nexus of locations, land uses and human interactions (Scott & Storper, 2014); a network of social systems for human well-being (Bettencourt, 2013; Montgomery, 2013); organisms made of social, economic and cultural ‘fabrics’(Maretto, 2014); ensemble of density, land use mix, connectivity and accessibility influencing greenhouse gas emissions (Seto et al., 2014).

How we think about cities and city planning has developed and changed over time, increasingly acknowledging contextual (geography, culture, and politics) differences. Master plans were primarily introduced to gauge urbanization in cities. However, developing states found it difficult to implement them due to poor administration and governance, while implementation in developed countries has resulted in urban sprawl. Current debates in planning realms revolve around climate change, and social and political changes around the world demanding greater civic participation and inclusion. Theory has emerged to rethink both the purpose of planning and the role of the planner in making decisions for cities.

Master planning in Pakistan is rooted in its colonial legacy from the British Era, which introduced official planning regulations and segregated cities into military cantonments, civil administrative centers, and residential neighborhoods for locals (Hasan, A., 2006). Over the years, governments have devised different planning tools to meet their urban development objectives. In the early decades post-independence, planning focused on refugee housing schemes, land use and infrastructure development. In 1960, the government realized the need to control the unconstrained growth and sprawl of significant cities. Eleven large cities were selected to develop master plans along with five-year plans. Hameed and Nadeem (2008) have discussed chronologically the practice of preparing and implementing master plans in Pakistan, accompanied by the shortcomings of legislative frameworks and unstable institutional structures. From master plans to structure plans and outline development plans in the 1980s, the 21stcentury saw the development of spatial plans. The fragmented approaches to planning have taken billions of rupees, human resources and time with little or no implementation.

We present a short synopsis of the planning practice in the three big cities of Pakistan to raise the question about what should be our way forward.

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Samna Sadaf Khan is an architect (B.Arch – NUST, Islamabad) and urban researcher (MSc Urban Management & Development – Erasmus University, Rotterdam). Her research interest lies in urban strategies towards sustainable and inclusive cities.

Amina Omar, student of BSc Honors Economics and Politics at Lahore University of Management Science with research interests in urban issues and development.

The post Cities and Master Plans in Pakistan first appeared on Learners’ Republic.

Image credit: Dawn news

During the past year, city administrations in Pakistan have shut down parksseveral times due to COVID-19 pandemic. This policy stands in stark contrast with developed countries across the globe. These countries allowed the use of parks for small gatherings. In fact, parks were deemed as a safe public space, allowing people respite from social isolation. As a result, there was a surge in park visitation after the initial lockdown was eased.

It is easier to institute social distancing measures in parks given the expansive space and the abundant airflow. Parks allow people to socialize while observing SOPs and seek out nature rather than being cocooned in their houses, considering work from home policies adopted by majority of workplaces. Further, greener spaces help with anxiety and depression, problems that have become amplified during the pandemic. Thus, it is not surprising that parks have become a popular public space for socially distant hangouts, picnics, exercise, and even meetings. This has increased the value of urban parks across the world, except in Pakistan.

While cheap and easily accessible recreational activities have always been scarce in Pakistan, the pandemic has completely upended the possibility for most. A close look at Karachi reveals how the city has little to offer to those who cannot pay for recreation during the pandemic. Public parks and beaches offer the cheapest recreational activity. Yet, over the last year, access to them has been heavily restricted for the public owing to social distancing concerns.

The Pakistani government’s recent decision to shut down parks over the Eid ul Fitr holidays due to the surge in COVID-19 cases was lauded by most. However, an unintended consequence of this decision was discriminatory law enforcement practices. For instance, people traveling in private cars were seldom questioned about their whereabouts on Eid by the police. On the other hand, the police specifically scrutinized and harassed commuters on motorbikes and cycles andblocked off their access to the beach and other parks on the Clifton belt.

Large investments have been made towards beautification of public parks such as Bagh-ibn-e-Qasim in Clifton. These investments should have focused towards developing urban parks as community-centric spaces which are accessible to everyone. Beautification is not a subpar objective, but it should be complemented with utility. Parks can help boost local economic activity, increase property values, act as natural drains to prevent urban flooding, and offer a multi-cultural space to engage the local community.Our government needs revise its approach towards parks and recreation.

Apart from investing in parks on the Clifton belt, barren tracts of land can be transformed into small parks.These can be developed through community participation which will allow citizens to take ownership of their development and maintenance. These parks can be developed in each neighborhood to provide a safe recreational space for residents during the pandemic.

The government must use this pandemic as an opportunity to reimagine parks and enhance their utility for the public. The development of such public spaces is crucial to maintain a semblance of normalcy during the pandemic for most people. The utility of this action would certainly outlast the pandemic and contribute towards creating a more inclusive society.

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Uswah Fatima is a senior at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, pursuing a major in Sociology and Anthropology. Her current research domain focuses on the gendered impact of Covid-19 on frontline health workers.

The post Parks & the Pandemic first appeared on Learners’ Republic.

In Pakistan, public spaces and women do not seem to be a compatible match. Women encounter unique issues in public spaces. To ascertain how women-friendly some markets in Lahore are, I along with two of my classmates (Maira Rehman and Duaa Khan) visited two markets – Shadman and Banobazar. These bazars were picked based on their reputation of being more accepting of unaccompanied female visitors. We went as a pair in broad daylight to understand the gender-based dynamics, social inclusion, and accessibility to public spaces in these locations.

As a woman in Pakistan, there are a few things that need to be considered when going to public places:

1. For most places, women need not go unaccompanied for their safety and preferably accompanied by a male.
2. Women need to be conscious of how they are dressed.
3. Public toilets, especially for females, are rare.
4. Women will be stared at irrespective of their age or how inconspicuous they may appear.
5. There is lack of awareness about personal space.

In Shadman market, there were a few problems that stood out while others were, refreshingly, not experienced. On a positive note, the presence of a female hostel right in the heart of the market and a semi residential area in proximity means that a lot of women and children present in the nearby public park seem comfortable being there. On the flip side, there are no restrooms available for the visitors. Most of the available space is used for car parking with no pavement space for walking. In the evenings, the streets are rarely lit raising safety concerns especially for women. The presence of streetlights, flood lights and shop lighting provide a clear view of the public spaces. This contributes to women’s perception of safety and access to these spaces.

Image: Shadman Market Lahore

Bano Bazaar is commonly filled with women and gives a sense of safety in numbers. However, the narrow alleys leading to the inner parts of the market lack adequate street lighting. As a result, women try to avoid the dimly lit pathways. Moreover, an issue faced in both these markets is that the interconnecting alleys and shops on multiple stories in certain areas can only be accessed through staircases that go up and down. This hinders access to the elderly and differently abled women in the absence of supporting ramp structures for easier access.

Image: Bano Bazar Lahore

Visit to these two marketplaces helped us draw important lessons for urban planning. The faults in design of our urban spaces and a lack of awareness on how that impacts and restricts access to them contributes to marginalization of women. This results in default segregation and restrictions on access to public spaces based on gender. Lack of female urban planners and a gender lens perspective results in negligible involvement of women in planning and designing urban spaces. It also leads to gaps in intellectual debate and implementation of solutions to problems faced disproportionately by women.

The culture of having agency over how women dress and the role of male family members in deciding where women can go adds a layer of complexity to the overall issue of acceptability of women in public places. All these issues culminate in a lack of trust between women and the cities they inhabit. The concept of women enjoying the public space to relax and not specifically linked to a purpose or task is not understood by the patriarchal mindset. Lessons can be learnt from healthier public spaces in other countries such as the Grand Bazaar in Turkey where the women spend their time freely even among the narrow alleys.

Our city planners and administrators need to understand women and children are in majority population in urban centers. Yet they are ignored while making decisions that impact urban life. Our message to decision makers is “Cities are safe when women feel safer in public spaces and cities are beautiful when women and children consider public spaces as living rooms of cities”.

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Wahiba Junejo is a Law grad of LUMS class of 2021, currently pursuing civil and criminal litigation in Karachi. Her research interests include legal and policy critique.

The post Urban Bazaars and Women – A Complicated Relationship first appeared on Learners’ Republic.

As a mother of a toddler and a woman walking in the streets of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, I encounter many challenges. Our exclusion focused urban planning and management has resulted in issues confronted by women ranging from harassment, dim lighted areas, ill planned or no walkways to lack of adequate (and safe) outdoor activity available for women and children. This is  further aggravated by the fact that many urban development authorities are led by civil servants who are mostly men. Worldwide, women occupy just 10 percent of the highest-ranking jobs at leading architecture firms and urban planning offices. In Pakistan which ranks at the bottom of gender equality Index, situation is bleak.  With very few women at key urban policy and management positions, the design of public spaces seldom considers the daily lives of women and children. In addition to limited representation in planning, women, girls and sexual and gender minorities are rarely asked to participate in community planning and design processes.

Pakistan is one of the most rapidly urbanizing country in the world. However, Pakistan’s cities are made for and by men. For Pakistan to prosper, cities will have to be inclusive. Therefore, gender lens is needed in the policy and planning hierarchy of the government.

In Pakistan, the lack of safe spaces for women is not very high on the city administrations’ agenda. The reasons for this are varied: no feminist policy focus and few women in positions to influence policymaking.As a woman public administrator, I have experienced even a few small steps can help cities safe for women and children. For example, just lighting up the streets or bus stops can make it easier for women go out at odd timings. I took a few initiatives with the partnership of local community to create safe spaces for women using playgrounds of public schools in Rawalpindi. Women public servants at other places have taken initiatives like creating accessible childcare and flexible work timings for working women. Existing parks can be designed to make them inclusive for women, children and differently abled people

Taking example of Islamabad, the city is averse to street vendors and they are removed regularly to keep Islamabad clean and beautiful. It is interesting because in a survey conducted by the Delhi police in India, most women felt safer on streets with vendors, as the higher footfall acts as a deterrent against potential perpetrators. Jane Jacobs called it “eye on the street”.

There is no denying the fact that social behaviors need to change. However, this is a long and arduous process. In the meantime, women and girls should not be denied safe spaces to harness their true potential. That is the arena where women policy planners and implementers need to reimagine cities for women and children.

Public administrators in Pakistan should make efforts towards transforming cities and roads from car-friendly character to women friendly spaces. If a city is safe for women it is safer for everyone. Cities become safer with vibrant streets and safe public spaces. Public administrators need to engage more women urbanists in decision making process who will design spaces according to the needs of women and children.

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Quratulain Fatima is a Civil Servant working extensively on the intersection of public policy, gender inclusive development and conflict prevention.

The post Pakistan’s Cities are Made For and By Men first appeared on Learners’ Republic.

By Manaal Ahmed

Lahore is one of the oldest cities in Pakistan. Consequently, it has undergone many conquests, destructions, and reconstructions over the centuries. This project seeks to uncover how Lahore was shaped into the bustling, ever-expanding and often confusing city that it is now. What are the forces behind the urban layout of the city and the implications of that layout for the residents of the city?

Lahore presented a unique opportunity to the colonisers. It had a vibrant walled city with its own socio-political rules and regularities but outside the city lay waste of land, tombs and abandoned barracks (Glover, 2008). Viewing the walled city as native, disorderly and beyond reform, they focused their attention on the suburbs outside the city. These suburbs became the site of the civil lines, railway station, Lawrence gardens, the chiefs (Aitchison) college, Punjab club, Gymkhana, Racecourse, the Church of Mary Magdalene and so forth.

These buildings were seen as “heterotopia”: a setting that is detached and in direct contrast to its surroundings (Talbot, 2017). This was not unintentional. The walled city was seen as a cesspool of disease, vice and disorder and the new colonial city was the direct antithesis of that. It was a city built for the new moral imaginations of the colonisers and the elite class. Spatial segregation created a distinction between the modern and the traditional, moral and immoral, clean and unsanitary, coloniser and colonised, and created that ‘the dual city’ of British India (Glover, 2008). The spatial imagination of the colonists was manifested in the construction of two Lahore’s: one within and one outside its walls.

The focus of the new city was on easily deciphered design as opposed to the winding gullies and the mystery of the Mughal city. Straight lines, right angles, the Indo-Sacronic architectural design and the presence of zoning were key features of the colonised city (Ian, 2017). Suburbs were separated on the basis of religion (Gowal Mandi and Mozang) and class (Model Town) as well as work specialisations. Despite the spatial differentiation between the old and the new, however, the colonial construction of Lahore was invariably a product of elite co-operation with the British. Lahore was divided not into Mughal and British territories but into class territories instead.

The Lahore cantonment was another creation of the British Empire. Due to rising concerns about Cholera, the Indian Army troops were moved from Anarkali to the Mian Mir Cantonment in the late 1800s (Ian, 2017). The cantonment was a perfect specimen of British architectural sensibilities. Its rectilinear roads went off in cardinal directions that made the cantonment easy to navigate, however, the cantonment’s design had many other functions.

The colonial construction of Lahore focused on two main points: control and surveillance (Talbot, 2017). The connection of the Cantt to the Mall Road and to the old city made it easier to dispatch groups on account of any riot in the city (Ian, 2017). The city was built to be legible and to be easily observable to the troops. It was also easy to transport troops from the railway station to the Cantt owing to the mostly straight roads. The cantonment also took pains to conduct massive surveys of the villages surrounding it for the purpose of ensuring cleanliness. However, in reality, it was a method of surveillance and control of the population. The cantonment also showcased a central tenet of the British regime: hierarchy. The space was organised in a way that the most senior troops resided in the centre while others moved further away according to their rank (Ian, 2017). The military hierarchy resulted in a spatial hierarchy of housing as well.

Evidently, the colonial conceptions of architecture influenced the private sphere of Lahore as well as its outward appearance. Houses in the Walled City were narrow, multiple stories high, adjoined and started at the street level with little room for sidewalks (Ian, 2017). By the 1930s, however, the construction of houses in the suburbs of Lahore was completely different. Building material, structure and use all were changed.

By 1919, a committee had been formed in Lahore to consider the planning of Lahore’s growing suburbs. In 1922 the Town Improvement Act was passed in Punjab establishing the legal framework for municipal improvement trusts for the purpose of rehousing Lahore’s Indian residents in a “neat Western-type ‘New Town’ environment” (Anbrine, 2014). Several new suburbs popped up, most notable of which was Model Town.

Established by Barrister Diwan Chem Chand and constructed under the supervision of Ganga Ram, the town was essentially based on Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Town ideal. The purpose of the town was to create a garden town to fulfil all socio-economic needs of its residents (Anbrine, 2017). The new all-encompassing town was a result of colonial spatial imagination that redefined the purpose and function of living space. The new town was a geometrically constructed myriad of public and private spheres. The town was divided into public zones that were reserved for economic activity and public buildings like schools, hospitals, mosques, gurdwaras and temples, while the private space was dominated by neat rows of bungalows.

The bungalow itself was a stark contrast to the earlier construction of houses. Prompted by a focus on the unhygienic conditions of the inner city, Model Town emphasized sanitation. They introduced flush toilets for the first time. The Bungalow, in contrast to the “traditional” houses, were spacious, mostly single-story and surrounded by gardens. The law stated that ⅔ of each house must be reserved for gardens in each Model Town house (Anbrine, 2014). The floor plan also replicated British sensibilities. They had a verandah, a drawing-room, a dining, sitting room, and separate baths.

Though it seems quite ordinary, the new style of building was entirely different from what had been inbuilt earlier. The British placed importance on Facades to determine the social standing of the resident hence, subsequent buildings also placed an importance on facades. This section showcases how the colonial influence constructed Lahore. This influence was not reserved for public spaces, rather it transformed Lahore from within.

Until 1985, the Lahore Improvement Trust and subsequently the Lahore Development Authority was responsible for most of the housing in Lahore (Van der Linden, 1994). It was able to build 97,000 new plots for housing for mostly middle-income residents of Lahore. This was mainly due to the Punjab Land Acquisition act 1973 that allowed the LDA to purchase land at lower rates. However, the act was repealed in 1985 and replaced by the Land Acquisition Act 1985 (Bhatti, 2018). This piece of colonial law made it much harder for the LDA to acquire land at low rates and consequently hampered its ability to provide adequate public housing. Since then, the LDA accounts for only 7% of the urban housing in Lahore, the rest is covered by private housing schemes or slums (Roosli & Tariq, 2019).

Private housing schemes boomed in the 1980s after the inflow of cash due to the Russo-Afghan war. Since then, the LDA has acted as a regulatory body that approves private housing schemes. So far it has given final approval to 73 private housing schemes inside and in the periphery of the Lahore Metropolitan Area (LMA) (Roosli & Tariq, 2019). Private housing schemes have become the primary housing agencies within Lahore but they only exacerbate the problem of spatial segregation.

Private Housing Schemes can also be viewed as ‘fortified enclaves’ that are privatised, enclosed, and monitored spaces for residence, consumption, leisure, and work (Perera, 2011). However, they are also a packaged ideal that has been imported from the global north. On one hand, they are marketed as luxurious spaces to express one’s individuality and on the other hand, they are means of standardisation of tastes. As Peter Sasanka argues, private housing schemes inform you of what is ‘good’ and at the same time marking something else as ‘bad’ (Perera, 2011). The connotations of luxury and class are enough to drive the demand for these schemes that are seen as opposites to the congested, often confusingly laid out central city. The more unsafe the city becomes, the more slums are created, and the more they become covered spaces of residence. Regardless of the fact that the development of these societies is directly responsible for the displacement of the urban poor or the draining of the city’s resources away from these slums, they are seen as havens of Lahore.

This segregation, however, is nothing new. In pre-colonial times, mohallas were divided along caste, religion and ethnicities. The colonial state segregated Lahore in terms of class and race and now the private housing schemes divide Lahore into the landed and the urban poor. For the middle class, there is no other option but to live in these societies because of a lack of public housing. Coupled with the fact that land is an important marker of class and a means to class mobility, the middle class continues to strive to live in these private gated communities, often at the neglect of the historic centres of Lahore (Asif, 2016).

The military has been entwined in the land of and around Lahore for decades now. Mainly it appropriated agricultural land for the purposes of defence however, in the 1980s it began its expansion to urban land as well. The military was empowered by the colonial Land Acquisition Act 1894 that allowed the military to lease land from the provincial government for “defence” purposes, however, the military has now become a private landowner in Lahore with the majority of its schemes having nothing to do with security (Saddiqa, 2004).

Schemes like Bahria and Defense Housing Authority are defined as “private sector operations run by authorities” (Guzdar, 2021). Pakistan’s role in the Afghanistan war meant huge foreign investment pouring into the country. Essentially it means that the military directly controls large areas of land within Lahore. This land is only allocated to military officers and only they are allowed to sell it to civilians creating a massive market for property (Saddiqa, 2007). However, instead of going towards development, it went into the real estate market. It served the army’s interests to have speculative land prices since it gave them high returns. These high returns, however, come at a cost.

Firstly, there are many instances of coercion by the military. The rural and peri-urban surrounding these housing schemes is appropriated, sometimes forcefully (Guzdar, 2021). Second, the speculative land prices mean that the demand for the land is high but given that the price is out of range for most Lahoris, the plots remain empty for years to come. Thirdly, the schemes are run like cantonments themselves where huge chunks of land are given to generals and officers are exempt from paying property tax (Saddiqa, 2007). Fourth, it leads to a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few wealthy military personnel. The military itself accepts that out of its 49 schemes, none are from ordinary officers within the military (Saddiqa, 2007).

All these factors have created a unique political economy of land in Lahore. The military housing schemes are in a sense furthering enclave ideals of the colonial era. They are seen as an oasis of security, amenities and class within the desolate, unplanned structure of Lahore. The enclaves not only operate in institutional isolation from their surroundings – but they also draw upon local natural and public resources in order to make themselves viable. The further the colonial spatial relations within Lahore that were parasitic to the city itself.

Lahore has developed largely in an unplanned manner. This has led to a massive urban sprawl problem. The Lahore metropolitan area has nearly tripled in size in the last 70 years (Bajwa et al, 2021). In 1972 the Master Plan for Lahore was created that planned to curb the urban sprawl and provide planned housing to the city. However, the plan failed spectacularly. The lack of planning, trained technocratic planners, coordination between the LDA and the LMC, no participation from the population and outdated data resulted in an inability to control the unplanned development of Lahore (Bajwa et al, 2021).

Given the situation, private developers began acquiring land at the peripheries of Lahore in the 1980s to build housing societies (Anjum, 2007). Land outside the city was cheaper and the rural population was easy to evict/convince to sell their land. The strict planning rules set by the LDA also didn’t apply in those areas hence it was both cheaper and easier to build. Owing to the rise of congestion in the city, there was more and more demand to move some places quieter. As the transportation networks developed in Lahore, it became easier to commute as well. These peripheral housing societies also came with all basic amenities like schools, hospitals and mosques that reduced the necessity to commute to the city. However, peri-urban development creates a new set of challenges.

Firstly, there is no penalty for delays in construction which means that a majority of these societies are just empty plots. For example, Izmir Town was started in 1990 has only 2.7% of its plots converted into houses (Bajwa et al, 2021). Second, the speculation of prices due to the financialization of the property market means that demand is always high (Bajwa et al, 2021). A majority of plots are owned by businessmen who have no plans to build on the land and are holding it purely for speculative purposes. Third, the land that is razed for these societies is often rural land (Nadeem et al, 2020). Rural land is essential to Pakistan as 60% of the workforce is engaged in the agrarian economy. Productive land is destroyed for the purpose of housing that lays empty for decades after. Fourthly, there are environmental concerns related to peri-urban development as well (Zaman, 2012). Environmental concerns have been the lowest priority for both public and private planning committees. For the Lahore Master Plan, no internationally recognised environmental feasibility study was carried out.

All these factors make peri-urban development considerably alarming. In the case of the Ravi Urban Development Project, all these fears have been raised multiple times with little consequence. This signifies that the concerns of the poor are of little value in the business of city planning. Housing societies are being built at record rates while the majority of Lahore remains landless and homeless.

In Pakistan about half of the urban population, about 27 million people, live in informal settlements (Roosli, 2019). UNHABITAT defines slums as a group of people living under one roof in an urban setting who lack permanent housing, enough livable space, or provision of drinking water and a proper sanitation system (Roosli, 2019). Despite the luxurious private housing societies, a majority of Lahore’s urban poor continue to reside in these slums or katchi abadis.

Katchi abadis lack the basic facilities to survive. In Lahore, both authorised and unauthorised katchi abadis lack sanitation, electricity, gas and proper road networks. Most importantly, the residents don’t have tenure security (Roosli, 2019). The city officials or private developers can force them to evict the settlement at any given time. In fact, that is exactly what is happening at the Gujjar Nala in Karachi right now. Despite these dismal conditions, however, the urban poor continue to live this way. The reason is that informal settlement is their only option. Without adequate housing for the poor, most people cannot afford housing in the city. They move to the city in search of work and settle anywhere that is close to it. For example, DHA is just 10 minutes away from the Qalandarpura slum in Lahore (Roosli, 2019). Katchi abadis are built close to economic centres and often supplement elite housing schemes.

This is not a coincidence. The colonial imagination saw the city in terms of binaries: formal and informal, rich and poor, good and bad. Unfortunately, the same binaries persist today in most cities in the global south because of capitalism. Global capital mandates development, it is necessary for a city to continuously produce more capital. The market-driven financialisation of the property and land means that new housing societies must be built continuously and their prices are purely speculative (Arif, 2015). This development however is entirely one-sided. It is not holistic or for the urban poor rather it results in the violent dispossession, segregation and peripheralization of the poor.

The persistence of katchi abadis can be seen as a failure of planning but in reality, it is the opposite. This is the kind of planning that has been going on for centuries in Lahore. The colonial state was only concerned with surveilling and controlling the urban labour rather than empowering them and the capitalist bourgeoisie state was only concerned with order and extraction of labour. The “world-class city” is just a space where poverty is invisible but it is still the crucial factor in the functioning of the city itself (Arif, 2015). First, the ruling prophesied class pushes the urban poor to the peripheries but then once the appropriate means for transportation have been established, takes control of the peripheries as well. Trapping them in a constant cycle of dispossession and neglect.

The purpose of this project was to understand the determinants of Lahore’s segregated development. By examining the political economy of land in Lahore, it is evident that selective development was not an unfortunate coincidence but a direct consequence of deliberately uneven planning strategies.

The colonial demarcations order and disorder, planned and unplanned, formal and informal, and legal and illegal persist to this day because they were institutionalized by the post-colonial state itself. Postcolonial elites inherited and reinforced the exclusionary geographies of segregated cities whereby the poor were considered a barrier to progress and denied a place in urban life. The segregation then resulted in the creation and perpetuation of katchi abadis and informal settlements that accompanied the luxury gated communities of Lahore.

Going forward, serious measures need to be taken to provide adequate housing, control urban sprawl, combat tenure insecurity and encourage building on empty plots. The first step however is to recognise the root of the problem itself. Without looking at the socio-political aspects that determine land acquisition and the prestige attached to land ownership we cannot hope to construct a solution for Lahore’s planning problems. We must first recognise the bias before attempting to correct it.

The post Lahore: A Landed History first appeared on Learners’ Republic.

By Amna Mahnoor Cheema, Ehtesham Arshad, Haider Ali Nawaz, Manaal Ahmed, and Safa Baig

For the purpose of this study, we are using UNESCO’s metrics to define public space as “an area or place that is open and accessible to all peoples, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. These are public gathering spaces such as plazas, squares and parks. Connecting spaces, such as sidewalks and streets, are also public spaces.” Mall road can be classified as a public space because there are no explicit barriers to entry on any person. Though implicit obstacles do exist, we will discuss them further in the report.

Being the most famous street in Lahore, Mall Road is packed with traffic throughout the day but also has enough sidewalks to assist pedestrians. Mall Road is one of the most privileged places in Pakistan to have most of the major cultural, civic and educational institutions including the Governor’s house, the Lahore Museum, GPO and major government high schools, colleges and universities. Many of these buildings are built in either Gothic or Indo-Saracenic style. We chose Mall Road as the focal point in our study on public spaces because of banks, shops, parks and universities it is the converging point of economic, leisure, cultural, finance and legal centres.

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The post Mall Road: A Decaying Dream first appeared on Learners’ Republic.