Key Takeaways from Research on Cities
Cities worldwide are the powerhouses of growth, commerce, innovation, productivity, and magnets for talent. They are the cradles of knowledge, entrepreneurship, science, and culture. While the world focuses on their cities to benefit from their positive externalities and minimize the negative impact (congestion, crime, and pollution), we, in Pakistan, have relegated cities and their governance issues to obscurity.
Research on cities and their management is scarce. Pakistan Institute of Development Economics took the lead in bringing this all-important research area to the mainstream back in 2006 with a conference on cities in Karachi. The research programme has advanced significantly since then, with cutting-edge research generating rigorous messages for academia and policymakers (Haque and Hasan, 2024).
Pakistan Needs a City-Centric Growth Policy
The policy circles in Pakistan are enamored with the idea that Pakistan is a rural, agriculture-based country. PIDE has questioned this myth of ‘rural Pakistan’ and has argued for a shift toward growth-enhancing city-centric policy. It contends that Pakistan is an urban country whose policymakers refuse to accept this reality[1]. This policy narrative has relegated cities to oblivion. The paucity of research on cities’ functionality, patterns, zoning, optimum size, architecture, globalization, governance, urban sprawl, and the absence of an urban policy has stifled the growth potential of cities (Haque, 2020). From the ancient Greek city-states to the contemporary metropolitan centers (New York, London, Paris), cities have been the cradles of knowledge, innovation, culture, commerce and productivity. They drive growth by enabling the exchange of goods, services, and ideas in a dense and mixed-use environment. This idea of city development being at the heart of the growth process represents an emerging global consensus. However, Pakistani policy and research remain largely oblivious to it, thanks to a highly donor-dependent policy process that eschews domestic thought and debate. The result is that Pakistani cities are the opposite of what conventional policy advice says they should be.
Pakistani Cities are Dysfunctional
Pakistani cities are dysfunctional, with suburban development and no downtown – dense areas of mixed-use (residential, office, commercial, and entertainment) within an almost walkable district. Unlike a modern city, which is dense, walkable, with mixed-use and high-rise city centers, Pakistani cities are horizontal sprawl with sub-urban two-story housing, car dependence, absence of commercial and public spaces, and limited opportunities for entrepreneurship and the poor. The prime land in city centers is occupied by housing for the government, which takes precedence over commerce. The city administration lacks professionalism and is a continuation of the colonial past. Obsessed with maintaining the status quo, they rely on archaic zoning and building regulations that are exclusionary to the poor and detrimental to dense, walkable, mixed-use city centers. The geographic spread of cities makes the provision of public transport an expensive affair, with the resulting dependence on cars. This car-centric approach makes road expansion (flyovers, underpasses, etc.) a big-ticket item in the development budget. There is an excess demand for most forms of city activities and basic services—education, entertainment, offices, retail, warehousing, and even low-income and middle-class housing. All these activities lack purpose-oriented space, and so are forced to be conducted in the only kind of city space planners have been allowing for the last few years—single-family homes. For cities to lead the growth process, city administrators must adopt a city-markets-governance framework (Haque, 2020).
Cities are Beholden to Master Plans
PIDE has questioned the relevance of master plans in shaping contemporary cities. It has consistently argued that the masterplans are a thing of the past, and the world has moved on from these archaic restrictive constructs. Masterplans are time and data-intensive. Being static and mostly non-inclusive, their stringent requirements leave little space for markets to develop. There is little flexibility built in to evolve the plan and move the city forward. They are often not updated on time, leaving room for vested interests to intervene and change rules in their favor. Master plans seem to dictate how markets should develop leaving no room for them to find their own level. When life does not adjust to these preordained plans for their life, cities and their residents end up in years of strife with encroachments involving lawsuits and law enforcement. It is thanks to master planning that we see a shortage in several areas in our cities. Yet the push for master-planning continues across Pakistan hoping to keep cities frozen for long periods of time from 15-30 years (Hasan et al, 2022, Hasan et al, 2020).
Over-regulated Cities
Pakistani cities have unwarranted and archaic regulations which have seldom been reviewed. Building and zoning regulations are excessively restrictive, favoring gated communities and sprawl. The rules are complex, self-contradictory, and subject to multiple interpretations. Building and zoning rules are conflated. Setbacks and heights are arbitrarily related to plot size and road width. The land-use rules and zoning regulations continue to favor outdated concepts, such as commercial roads based on car access over dense areas. The construction industry, which is a leading sector in other countries, has been killed by excessive regulation. PIDE has long argued for zoning and building regulations to be flexible to allow for dense, mixed-use developments that enhance mobility, creativity, and productivity. Zoning should merely differentiate between the city centre and the suburbs. The building regulations must specify FARs only within Sky exposure guidelines. No detailed building setbacks are required. The focus should instead be on building intensity, i.e., the percentage of the plot that can be covered. This, too, should be area by area, not building by building (Haque 2015, 2020, Policy Viewpoint 2, 12, 13, 16).
Further, the government needs to ensure that cities have coherent jurisdiction. Lahore, e.g., is divided into almost five overlapping jurisdictions of LDA, Municipal Corporation, DHA, Cantt, etc., and Karachi has 19 agencies, including DHAs, Municipalities, and Federal Housing Schemes. There are no defined city limits, and mere plot-making stretches cities in strange directions.
[1] It is one of the fastest urbanizing countries in South Asia with two mega cities (Karachi and Lahore).
