URBANISM: THE GEOGRAPHY OF PAKISTAN’S POPULATION GROWTH |
Urbanisation patterns over the past two decades dictate that the future is decidedly city-bound. The UN-Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022 shows that the global urban population will increase from 54 percent in 2015 to 62 percent by 2036.
Pakistan is no stranger to this trend. We are living through the greatest demographic shift of our time and Pakistan’s cities are woefully unequipped to deal with the fallout. Unlike conventional urbanisation, which is driven by economic success, Pakistan’s is fuelled by population increase — 2.55 percent annually, the highest in South Asia.
A recent World Bank study argues that Pakistan is far more urban than official figures suggest — closer to 88 percent rather than the reported 39 percent. The surge in population, combined with waves of rural-to-urban migration, is driving an explosion in demand for housing, water, transport and jobs.
CITIES SPREADING THIN
The UN-Habitat’s 2022 report estimates that over the next 50 years, most of the physical expansion of cities — 141 percent of city land growth — will occur in low-income nations, with another 44 percent in lower-middle-income countries, such as Pakistan.
However, city authorities lack the resources or capacity to keep up. The influx of migrants rapidly overwhelms local governments, creating a service delivery crisis. Pakistan’s major cities are spreading outwards into suburbs and peripheral zones, converting land for urban use far faster than services or natural buffers can keep pace.
Pakistan’s cities are expanding outward at unprecedented rates, replacing vegetated land with concrete sprawl. This isn’t just an urbanisation story, it’s a climate crisis in the making
What this also means is that the country’s population challenge is playing out most visibly at its urban edge, where sprawling growth is replacing green fields, orchards and open land with concrete, asphalt and housing colonies.
THE VULNERBALE EDGE
Expanding cities consume landscapes that once kept them habitable. Lahore’s edges, lined with farmland and tree belts two decades ago, are now covered in paved housing schemes. Data from the Urban Unit of Punjab’s Local Government and Community........