Abu Bakar Sadiq
Globally, over 50% of the population lives in urban areas today. By 2045, the world’s urban population will increase to 6 billion. City leaders must move quickly to plan for growth and provide the basic services, infrastructure, and affordable housing their expanding populations need, says a World Bank Report. Cities are considered as a platform for agglomeration of ideas, talents, goods, business services, and human creativity. Cities’ performance is closely linked with the growth of a country. Some urban
planners have described cities the basic platforms for global innovation and economic growth, supplanting the corporations as the fundamental organizing unit of the contemporary economy. said by Nadeem ul Haque in an article ‘Flawed Urban Development Policies in Pakistan’ Almost, all developmental activities have occurred in cities. Great civilization and empires have been evolved in cities. The link between economic growth and urbanisation is positive. It means that more urbanization, more economic growth. According to Dr Nadeem ul Haque, there is a whole new approach to
understand growth and development, which tells us that “a city, economically, is like the nucleus of an atom” and there is a need to understand how development can be enhanced through construction and operations of city. Cities make a lot of sense for humans. People are densely populated and are not far away from each other. All infrastructure including schools, shops, and hospitals are more easily accessible. Knowledge-spillover effect is more dominant in cities than in rural areas. The huge amount of
output in any country is produced in the cities and it is noted that the rich and poor countries are differentiated by their city’s productivity. Statistics shows that more than 80% of global GDP is generated in cities. To understand the dynamics of urbanization and urban planning in the context of Pakistan, a discussion on “Cities for Humanity and Development” was hosted by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics Islamabad on webinar. The chief guest Ken Greenberg, an architect and urban designer from Toronto, said, enabling the shift from the mid-20th century land-use segregated, auto- oriented city to a more sustainable, compact, mixed urban form. A key component of this shift is a
reassessment of the reliance on the automobiles, the technology that drove it and its appropriate place in the urban context. Moreover, Ken said that in a second equally powerful paradigm shift we are now on the rebound from the post-war car-centric vision. Big forces propelling this -Economic, Demographic and Environmental. Pakistan have some of the large cities of the world such as Karachi, Lahore Faisalabad etc. we are drowning in sprawl and these sprawling are increasing just like in Faisalabad.
urbanization in Pakistan is taking place very rapidly as investigated that Pakistan up to 70% is now urbanized. Dr Nadeem ul Haque wrote an article (Flawed Urban Development Policies in Pakistan) said that, it is investigated that in Pakistan’s cities there are no tower cranes even if, they are using less for construction purposes. As in Lahore, there are apparently 11tower cranes out of which only 5 are involved in construction while 3 are involved in demolition. Moreover, we are still focusing on cars for
transportation, widening of roads, constructing useless bridges and and undergrounds and a much cumbersome project of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which is the recent example. Walkability is poorly developed. Although, we know that world is going to shift the car use in inner city to bicycle and enabling the walkability. Pakistan’s City planning is inspired by the Harvard advisory group, some donor, foreigner consultants and we have indented to follow the American suburban model with cars.
Moreover, we have very rigid American style zoning with deep separation between commercial centres, housing centres, schools and hospitals. There is a very deep aversion to letting downtown development. Our downtown has no pedestrian or zebra cross which is a prerequisite for every today’s cities planning.
Moreover, we built highways within city centre with no walkability and rare sidewalks. We have no parking charges yet. We have excluded the poor, no zoning for the poor, and no place for business, street wending is almost banned. We are drowning in sprawl, cars and homeless of the poor Now come to the prime minister vision to build 5 million houses outside the cities.PM offers the hosing package through subsidy, mortgage even though these people have no jobs, no profile to obligate mortgage. How these all are possible is still a big question mark. Pakistan needs immediate steps towards
removing impediments to ensure well-functioning of cities and smooth economic growth. Following are some recommendations. The presence of cantonments of army within the city hinders business activities. Demolishing them will reduce government expenditure and increase revenue and on the other hand will stimulate entrepreneurship and commercial activities. Cut-throat competition in cities may hinder the growth process. City’s authority regulates such type of competition in cities. Devolution and people-centric city government is needed for cities to work efficiently. Geography/location plays important role in city’s performance. City cores should be allowed mix used (commercial, residential,
recreational and educational). It will solve the transportation problem mostly. Introduce cycles instead of heavy vehicles. It will resolve the pollution problem up to some extent. The writer is a student at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics Islamabad
