Daily Times

LAHORE: The 6th session of Saturday City Dialogue series on “City Beautification” was concluded and focused on the importance of public spaces and walkways. The session was held at Quaid-e-Azam Library here on Saturday. It was hosted by the Urban Unit.

Walled City Lahore Authority (WCLA) Director General Kamran Lashari was key speaker of the series who focused on major success stories he completed during his career with the ongoing work being done in the walled city. He presented model work done in various cities for improving their aesthetics while offering some public spaces for the citizens too.

He was of the view that people should be more involved in cities’ beautification initiatives as their inclusion makes ambience sustainable and promising while avoiding mishandling of some very important and unique public spaces.

“Cities are for people and thriving and inclusive cities offer something for everyone living there. World has moved to adopt the New Urban Agenda that stresses nothing but cities for all approach. In Pakistan, we lag behind in city beautification initiatives because of the lack of sustainability factors in our major projects. We start, finish but fail to sustain the pace thus ending up in losing major projects in files and databases. The food streets and plantation drives in Lahore are one big example of the same,” Kamran Lashari said.

He termed Wazir Khan Mosque restoration project as a mini miracle given its geographical location and complex network of small vendors around it. Besides many others, he also announced Night Tourism to be started from March 10 in the city that will be yet another step to restore and revive the city’s centuries-old culture and enchanting beauty.

Lashari lamented the fact that we are left with no walking culture as we have no walking margins left in the city. At a time when half of Europe has been turned into the open cafés, we are deprived of little pleasures and recreational opportunities in urban life.

A session was attended by a number of town planners, architects, government officials, students and civil society members. Fouzia Qureshi, Dr Nadeem ul Haque, Abdul Razzaq, Rizwan Ahmed, Dr Zeeshan Khan, Col (R) Mubashar Ahmed, Amber Ali and many others attended the dialogue.

The dialogue participants asserted that as a nation we cannot manage to celebrate and enjoy things with a positive and healthy civic sense. We need to inculcate a sense of enjoyment that is harmless and generates pleasure instead of making losses to individuals and society both.

Speaking on the occasion, Urban Unit CEO Dr Nasir Javed expressed gratitude to an audience for making the dialogue a success in terms of participation and ideas and knowledge exchange. She said that the next City Dialogue will be held on March 10, will feature Salman Sufi as guest speaker and presenter.

Published in Daily Times, March 4^th 2018.