The ever-expanding metropolis

Peshawar juggles between its own share of urban dilemmas and IDP crisis.

PESHAWAR: The city is growing; knocking on the door of tribal areas to the west and the friendly neighbour Nowshera to the east. The question really is, where do its residents go from here?

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s evolving demographics have a direct causal link with almost everything and anything that happens within the province. The flagrant population growth coupled with unplanned urban expansion has given birth to a new policy shift – contingency aimed at managing the city rather than containing it. This has been caused by a fundamental flaw in the policy argument – treatment of urbanisation as a mere physical entity and not a metamorphosis of space and the gradual change with which we deal with it. The city’s residents, both individually and as a whole, are a non-existent entity in the entire process.

K-P is still more rural than urban; take the example of Peshawar. With an estimated 3.6 million people walking its streets, 42% of Peshawar’s areas are urban while 58% are rural. Going by the numbers, it is the largest urban centre of the province whose urban population is expected to increase by a staggering 57.7% within 15 years. It has an annual growth rate of 3.29%, arguably the highest in the country.

With the influx of displaced tribespeople and the ineffectual mechanism of providing a conducive environment for their return, the city is now juggling between its own share of problems and the IDP crisis. Internal migration continues to alter the existing dynamics of the city, exerting pressure that has become difficult to handle.

While the governments emphasise on short-term solutions like encroachment drives and security measures, these eyewash moves are expected to bounce back in shape of long-term political problems.

The mantra at the moment is to convert agricultural land into gated communities and communal land into commercial schemes. “In Peshawar, urban development is occurring in a ‘ribbon pattern’ along its communication routes,” states a government report; the consequences of which are peri-urban spaces with high growth densities. While unplanned, private housing schemes are mushrooming across the city, the government has little interest in planned public housing schemes. This gives rise to a new phenomenon: a continuous expansion of slums and informal settlements.

As of now there are 18 distinct slums in the city. Interestingly, one of them, Changarabad, stands on private land. Furthermore, over 70% of these residences have been rented out.

People have not begun to head to the city once law and order became a serious question in adjoining areas. The process has been gradual and largely caused by natural growth. During the last census that was conducted when Nawaz Sharif was yet to be shown the door by a military dictator, Afghan refugee camps were never taken into consideration.

The argument that Peshawar owes its share of problems to the massive population outbursts that were caused by security crises only reflects part of the whole. Facts contradict the popularly-held belief; what remains a core issue is bad governance aided by a lack of foresight with an understanding of regional dynamics.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th,  2015.