Imran Khan’s government has left two parting gifts for Lahore. Both were inaugurated in the last two years of the government, with lofty promises of transforming Lahore and setting examples for the development of Pakistani cities.
The first gift is the creation of the Central Business District (CBD) for the city in the middle of Gulberg on the land vacated by the old Walton airport. The second is even more fanciful. It is envisaged as a planned city of about 10 million residents as the western extension of Lahore on the Ravi riverfront. The river will be contained in a channel interspersed with a lake and other water bodies. The project will spread out into the adjoining districts.
Both projects are premised on attracting billions of dollars as investment from Dubai and Saudi Arabia primarily.
The Central Business District (CBD) of Lahore
To carry out this project, Imran Khan’s government established an autonomous agency, the Punjab Central Business District Development Authority (PCBDDA), which as usual will not be accountable to local representatives.
The idea that a modern city has to have a central business district has long beguiled Lahore’s decision-makers. Anarkali and the Mall Road were thought to be the CBD in the 1950s and 60s. As commercial markets emerged in suburbs, the idea of Lahore’s center continued to evolve. In June 2020, the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) designated Jail Road, the Main Boulevard, and other commercial hubs of Gulberg as the city’s CBD. The new project of a purpose-built CBD is the latest iteration of Lahore’s centre. It covers an area of 636.75 acres, approximately 5094 Kanals.
To carry out this project, Imran Khan’s government established an autonomous agency, the Punjab Central Business District Development Authority (PCBDDA), which as usual will not be accountable to local representatives.
The plan displayed on the PCBDDA website shows three tiers of low-rise to high-rise buildings arranged in rows within the superblock created by the arterial, highway-like roads and roundabouts.
Proposed plans for Central Business District Gulberg
In public presentations, the chairman of the Authority talks about a place of branded residential, commercial, digital, hotel and entertainment as well as governmental districts. The description of the plan has all the buzz words of the current urban development lexicon, such as historic preservation, sustainability, green infrastructure and even a rainwater collection pond.
Of course, the high-rise will be the primary building idiom. There is a promise of building a 70 storeys tower to put Lahore finally in the league of cities with very tall buildings. The CBD is meant to make Lahore a ‘modern metropolis of international standards.’ Yet it will transform Gulberg into a heat island.
Imagine how Lahore would have looked like if Walton airport land had been turned into an urban forest and wetland to replenish the aquifer. It would have been a unique place indeed.
Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project (RRUDP)
In August 2020, the former prime minister announced an ambitious project worth over five trillion rupees to build a model city along the Ravi River by the Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA). It aims at building a planned city over 102,074 acres spread across 46 kilometers of the river front for a population of approximately 10 million.
As usual, displacing the poor is the first order of business in Pakistan’s development projects.
It envisages cleaning the river and creating a lake to provide a scenic site for apartment towers. Of course, the project presses the right rhetorical buttons. It promises to plant 6 million trees. Yet its first and daunting challenge is to clean the river, which now literally is a sewer for Lahore and has almost a century of detritus in its bed.
Most of the land is being compulsorily acquired from small farmers and tenants. As usual, displacing the poor is the first order of business in Pakistan’s development projects. The scale of this displacement can be judged from the fact that 76,000 acres of farmland and 12,172 acres of protected forest area will be bulldozed to create plots. Public interest litigation and the Human Rights Commission’s advocacy on behalf of the displaced farmers and environmental violations have had no effect.
The RUDA is perhaps the most ill-conceived scheme of the two.
Real estate developers and speculators however, are already having a field day. Files and allotment letters of the plots are being advertised at ridiculous prices. Mr. Parvez Elahi, the short-lived Chief Minister of Punjab, announced setting aside 700 Kanals in the RUDA project for journalists.
Building a good modern city
Our political leaders envision an ‘international standard modern metropolis’ as what they see in Dubai, London or New York. Yet every city has its own internal socio-economic dynamics. The challenge is to uncover and cultivate it.
A contemporary good city is just and affordable for low as well as high-income households. Modernity has recently come to mean environmental and social sustainability. On top of the priority list is the adequacy of public goods shared by all indivisibly, e.g. clean air, infrastructure, Internet, public transport, energy conservation, water supply, green spaces, sustainable land usage and zoning, and walkable neighborhoods.
By these criteria, the two projects fall far short. The proposed CBD project is conceived in the idiom of a corporate downtown of office towers filled with workers, whose martini lunches and dress needs bring department stores and upscale restaurants.
This downtown has been mortally jolted by the digital technologies of remote work, declining demand for office spaces and on-line shopping. The CBDs of New York, London and Toronto are suffering from high vacancies. Will Lahore CBD fare better?
Lahore already has about 15 shopping malls combining food courts, department stores and entertainment. There is little unmet demand for commercial space to spare for the CBD.
Also, there are the Cantonment areas, where Defence Housing Authority, with the powerful backing of the military is building a city within the city. It has signed Dubai’s H&S Real Estate to build a 27-storey tower of luxury apartments.
The idea of a CBD is contrary to Lahore’s economic organization and spatial structure. The city is already a multifocal place with many commercial and entertainment centres. Its commercial areas tend to be organized by social class and corresponding commodities, e.g. Shadman for imported fabric, M.M Alam road for upper-end restaurants, Gulberg’s Hafeez Center for digital technology, Liberty and DHA’s markets for ladies’ boutiques and fancy shoes, and Daroghawala for cheap household goods. There is little commercial activity seeking a CBD.
Perhaps the most demanding and inequitable impact of the proposed CBD will be on infrastructure. It will require expanding the sewerage, drainage and already depleting water supply. Tall towers will require revamping fire services and codes. If successful, it will generate a lot of traffic, emissions and energy demand.
The new city on Ravi
The RUDA is perhaps the most ill-conceived scheme of the two. As the map shows, it will be built dead center in the flood plains of the river. Under the Indus Water Treaty, India has official control of the river. It is polluted, reduced to a drain in the winter and subject to unpredictable floods in summer.
Why build on flood prone farmland? The outcomes of such folly are well-known to the entire nation after the floods of 2022, yet the greed of real estate speculators recognizes no rationality.
Lahore has not succeeded in building a comprehensive sewage treatment system in 70 years for the present population. Will it succeed with the combined population of 25-30 million? The sewage coming from upstream villages is another challenge.
All these considerations have been buried under the promises of billions and trillions. Even the courts have bought into those promises.
The climate crisis is upon us. Rain bombs, alternating with droughts and the 50-degree Celsius summers are forecast to hit unpredictably. We should learn a lesson from the recent monsoon caused floods in Sindh and Balochistan.
Why build on flood prone farmland? The outcomes of such folly are well-known to the entire nation after the floods of 2022, yet the greed of real estate speculators recognizes no rationality.
The challenges of urban growth and local learning
Lahore is bound to grow as its population and economy continue to expand. How is this growth to be accommodated? An intelligent way to accommodate this growth is by increasing the city’s density and enacting compact development, possibly within the city’s existing area.
Lahore should leap into the present, bypassing the mega project addiction of the 20th century. We should get over our Dubai-fication fixation.
Some high rise apartments for residences and offices may be built around mass transit hubs, such as the Orange train stops. But the architectural idiom of Lahore should be an open and modernized version of the historic city. Town houses, combined with 3-4 storey duplexes and triplexes, are the right form of residential developments. Vacant lots, which are aplenty, and vacant land in the city are the land resources for such a housing stock.
Afterall, the walled city has a housing density that beats any high-rise cluster. In the areas of wide streets of the walled city, Shahi Mohala and Hakiman Bazaar, the density is about 20-30 households per acre. That tops many high rises.
Colonial era, new indigenous communities like Krishan Nagar, Nisbet Road and Jain Mander are able to combine good access with high density. Of course, they need appropriate public services adapted to the contemporary needs of parking and sidewalks.
Yet the most urgent needs of Lahore are for public goods - infrastructure, clean air and coping with climate risks. It should be based on the strategy of replenishing groundwater, localized sewerage treatment, sidewalks and drainage improvements. There are 21st century bioengineering technologies for these services. Lahore should leap into the present, bypassing the mega project addiction of the 20th century. We should get over our Dubai-fication fixation.
Finally, the physical facilities and buildings are urban hardware. Cities also have a software of institutions, regulations and social norms. Lahore’s software is tattered. It must be rebuilt with civic education, electronic as well as social media discussions, literature, community organizations and local governments answerable to people.
