Rethinking vertical expansion of Islamabad

Successive governments in Pakistan have historically been showing sturdy commitment to encourage vertical expansion of cities. In early 2019, for example, then Prime Minister vowed to embolden vertical expansion of Pakistani cities paving way for the growth of high-rise buildings all over the country.

However, no serious effort was made. Recently, the Federal Minister of Planning, per media reports, has directed the chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA) to actuate vertical housing projects in Islamabad so that big bungalows, occupying multiple acres of horizontal land, could be discouraged. Studying other leading metropolises such as Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing and Shanghai is also under consideration so as to learn from their best practices and incorporate them into the Islamabad plan.

This kind of policy initiative, per literature on urban planning, requires a well-researched holistic analysis on the optimal usage of urban spaces keeping in view multiple factors such as economic growth rate, city's land size, its resources, architectural trends and their relationship with positive and negative externalities.

There is no denying the fact that cities act as engines of economic growth in which right usage of urban spaces plays the role of fuel running the engine. The very concept of urban space and its right usage is an intricate topic as, in addition to the factors mentioned supra, it revolves around extra-legal power relations between the powerful and powerless segments of a society. Islamabad is the capital city of Pakistan and known all over the world for its green areas and environment-friendly outlook.

However, unfortunately, the city has historically witnessed an elitist evolution of quibbling processes hampering its transformation as an engine of economic growth. These processes have traditionally been supporting the powerful strata of Pakistani society for the last several decades.

Highly convoluted urban planning processes have not only misused urban spaces but also acted as a catalyst to develop an elitist mindset in Islamabad in which private residential space has become a status symbol. This suggests that the powerful class in Islamabad has become used to of an elitist lifestyle and they have developed a mindset that urban spaces they are using belong to them.

As a result, the city is experiencing an unbridled urban sprawl and mushroom growth of housing societies in and around the city.

Let's not forget that development is not just about increasing economic growth rate in the country; it is actually about changing the elitist mindset in the country in general and Islamabad in particular.

In order to bring about such swerving change, an inchoate step is to critically analyse how multiple stakeholders in Islamabad, such as firms, residents and tourists, use tangible and intangible resources of the city. For this purpose, the concept of 'operand' and 'operant' resources can be applied as suggested by Baccarani, et al. in their research paper 'Territory, firms and value co-creation synergies'.

The operand category refers to resources on which some action can be performed. In contrast, operant resources can perform an action on other resources. The usage of Islamabad's resources by firms, residents and tourists, under the said framework, will actually turn out to be a detailed analysis of power relations between the powerful and powerless stakeholders of the city which will definitely expose indecent urban truths of Islamabad.

Over the past several decades the firms, residents and tourists in Islamabad have been institutionally evolved in a manner in which a limited level of value co-creation synergies has been accepted as an economic success.

Such restricted level of urban synergies, owing mainly to sale and purchase of urban properties, has actually created a power status quo that suits the firms, residents and tourists in the short run. In the long run, the country's sluggish economic growth rate is not supporting next level of value co-creation synergies resulting in resentment among the powerless class of Islamabad. As they wish to live in Islamabad, they are unable to buy spacious private houses as have been acquired by the powerful class.

The case study methodology aiming to study other cities from the world such as Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing and Shanghai has a merit provided such studies also follow some robust urban planning framework.

CDA needs to ensure that it studies those cities which have similar economic, social, environmental and political circumstances vis-à-vis Islamabad. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's Reference Class Forecasting (RCF) method, focusing on similar past cases and situations, could provide a cogitating base for this purpose. Mere economic success of metropolises should not be the sole criteria while selecting cities for studies.

The proposed cities' geography, political history, economic outlook, culture, power relations social dynamics and urban architecture has to be in consonance with Islamabad as suggested by the RCF method.

Islamabad is a distinctive urban case which has historically been designed for private landholdings. Injecting high rise buildings in the city requires a wider debate in which views of stakeholders could honestly be transformed into policy themes.

In the absence of such policy themes, the firms, residents, tourists and other stakeholders will continue to follow the economic status quo in the city and the outcome may not be different from the past. Furthermore, lack of debate may inject dictatorial storylines in the decision-making process which may further widen the gap between the powerful and the powerless of the city.

Prudent urban planning requires patience and there are no overnight solutions. If Islamabad has to act as an engine of sustainable economic growth, it will have to ultimately revert to vertical expansion. However, such urban metamorphosis requires well-informed decision-making capable of systematically taking value co-creation synergies to the next level.