Growing Urbanization:
Shifting Sands
By Dr Noman Ahmed
A road journey from Karachi to Peshawar will reveal
several important faces of our urban settlements.
Very weak land-use control, fusion of urban activities
with rural terrain, amorphous city boundaries, ribbonpatterned
development all along the highways and major
roads are common observations. From a technical standpoint
these show the enormous speed at which urbanization
is taking place in Pakistan.
It is now difficult to believe that when Pakistan came into
being in 1947, only 17pc of the country could be called urban.
Lahore, Karachi and Dhaka were the prominent urban centers.
Karachi, which was a sleepy port town of 435,000 people at
the time of partition, grew by two and a half times in just four
years. It became a complex urban asylum of 1,050,000 people
in 1951. Based on conservative estimates, it is believed that Karachi
has transformed into a bulging urban region with more
than 20 million inhabitants. At the national level, the stride of
urbanization is fast — the 1998 census reported that 32.5pc of the country was urban, which, according to studies by the Planning Commission, will grow to nearly 50pc by 2030. The causes behind rapid urbanization have been several. The creation of Pakistan gave rise to one of the largest social dislocations in recent history. Millions of people crossed the borders to re-settle in the new homeland of their choice. A sizable proportion of this population load was shouldered by cities like Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad and Faisalabad. The country witnessed the introduction of agricultural reforms — popularly called the green revolution in late 1950s and after. Expansion of canal command areas, introduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, use of tractors, threshers and other mechanical devices and use of improved seeds were some core interventions that led to the enhancement of agroproduction. But it also caused rampant loss of employment and livelihoods for manual labor, especially for unskilled and semiskilled people. The demand for industrial labor, construction workers and manpower in transportation and services sector in the cities were some key triggers that caused population migration from rural to urban areas. The fall of Dhaka in 1971 gave rise to a new wave of inter-regional migration mainly towards Karachi and cities in southern Sindh. Afghan wars since 1980s also added urban migrants to Pakistani cities. People displaced due to droughts, flood and earthquake disasters have been recent additions to urban locations. And the war on terrorism, unleashed in northern Pakistan has caused large scale exodus to the cities — the Swat operation of 2009 is a case in point. The rapid pace of population increase in cities due to migration and natural growth has generated multiple outcomes. The urban centers face the acute problem of squatter and unplanned settlements. These settlements have been evolving ever since independence due to the inadequate state response to the need of housing for the poor. As state land was abundant in several cities, many katchi abadis sprang up on these loosely guarded territories. The landlords of peri-urban locations also contributed to the promotion of katchi abadis for their own benefit. With the passage of time, options of any affordable housing for the real poor have simply vanished due to several reasons. Burgeoning land prices, high construction costs, very low savings/capital accumulation among the needy groups and absence of housing credit options are the few reasons. Urban land, which was considered a social asset a few decades ago, is now traded as a commercial commodity. It is wellknown that internal migration to Karachi from continuing at a rapid pace. Much of
this population is absorbed in the
confines of existing katchi abadies.
In reference to one interpretation,
katchi abadis can be called the
shock absorbers for the city because
there would have been mass-scale
riots if the low-income groups had
an absolute denial of housing options.
And uneven settlements, poor
governance and absence of elected
local governments give rise to social
conflicts, crime and violence. Many
medium and large-sized cities in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and
Sindh experience this problem at an
expanding scale.
Poverty is a visible variable in
almost all urban centers of Pakistan.
It is an outcome of a broad-ended
process of change in the social, economic
and physical dimensions.
Around the globe, urban areas are
experiencing this change which has
become very prominent towards
the turn of the millennium. There
are many factors that have brought
about this change. The 20th century
model of the welfare state, which
was derived from the Western social
democratic tradition, has been
overtaken by the market economy
doctrines.
As a consequence, the vulnerable
sections of the society are finding
it difficult to cope. Thus the allocation
of land for different purposes,
apportionment of resources for development,
creation and promotion
of enterprises, issues in labor relations,
provision of social amenities
and even dispensation of justice are
being adjusted and often compromised
according to influences of
market approaches. Urban poor are
often evicted from high-value locations
in cities and forced to reside in
remote locations.
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