The crisis of COVID-19 and its requirements for physical distancing, staying at home and handwashing have re-established public health’s link with urban planning. The early origins of the planning movement in the 19th century were in response to the poor health conditions in Europe’s rapidly industrializing cities. By taking a public health perspective, planners influenced town layouts, developed housing standards and established minimum open space requirements in new housing developments.
The global planning movement also influenced Pakistani cities. For example, modern urbanism in Lahore was advanced by the British Colonial government by building large-scale parks (such as the Lawrence Garden and Minto Park), institutional and educational buildings, and bungalow-style housing (such as GOR, Mayo Garden and Model Town), connected by a hierarchy of roads, including The Mall. However, urban planning was limited to new areas and for rich people, which, unfortunately, still continues after a century.
The British colonial planning model was criticized by Sir Patrick Geddes, a Scottish professor of town planning, who published the report Town Planning for Lahore in 1917. He was sceptical about planning approaches that did not consider the social, cultural and spatial aspects of the low socio-economic population living in Lahore. Geddes argued for improvement of the existing cities through ‘conservative surgery’ rather than large-scale slum (Katchi Abadies) demolition, which was proposed by the British Colonial government and was even proposed by the PM’s 5 Million Housing Programme in 2020. Geddes advocated the pressing need for planting fruit trees in urban areas and creating open spaces in dense urban areas for public health reasons. He argued for adopting multidisciplinary and people-centred approaches for urban planning and the development of Lahore. The current COVID-19 crisis prompts us to ask: how might Geddes’ people- and environment-centred approaches of urban planning respond in the face of this health crisis?
The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially painful for low socio-economic people, both in terms of loss of income and lack of water and sanitary conditions in their houses and streets
Pakistani cities have shown resilience during the war against terror, economic uncertainty, housing unaffordability, a lack of transport facilities, lack of water and serious environmental pollution in the last few decades. During COVID-19, resilience has helped people live their lives regardless of confusion about the lockdown and smart lockdown policies. Pakistani people are waiting to return to a normal situation. Although a return to normal is appealing, we have to acknowledge that the majority of people were living in bad conditions in Pakistani cities even well before the crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially painful for low socio-economic people, both in terms of loss of income and lack of water and sanitary conditions in their houses and streets. Messages, such as staying at home, social distancing and handwashing are meaningless for their over-crowded houses and suburbs. In fact, the COVID-19 crisis exposed socio-economic inequalities and spatial inequities (the lifestyle of DHA and Bahria Town vs Ichra and Baghanpura) rampant in our cities. The absence of an effective local government system and privatization of housing and open spaces has left Pakistani cities unprepared to cope with a crisis. As 80% of people in our cities belong to low socio-economic cohorts and live in unplanned areas of cities, how can we ensure that these people are visible and are active in shaping their living areas and cities?
Patrick Geddes’s idea of developing street corner parks and growing fruit trees in each street can provide access to greenspace in low-income housing areas. It will complement the PM’s billion trees programme as well, which ignored urban areas so far. The quality of our outdoor street environment and the right to decent housing have never been so important than during this time. For example, decent housing could be apartment-style dense housing, which has proven effective during Covid-19.
Patrick Geddes emphasized preserving the unique characteristics of Pakistani cities. Historically, streets are for walking and playing. The street as a walking or play space is being rethought across many cities in the Covid-19 crisis. Pop-up cycle lanes have been a common urban response from Auckland to Melbourne. I myself played cricket in the streets of Lahore and Rawalpindi in the 1980s. With dramatic decreases in traffic, air and noise pollution, I am delighted to see how local children have reclaimed their previously traffic-dominated streets in 2020. In post-Covid planning, we should prioritise walking and cycling in a new sustainable mobility infrastructure and regenerate our streets for people and children.
The Covid-19 crisis provides an opportunity for new thinking in urban planning for a positive transformation in our cities. We should start talking about the relationships among cities, health, the environment and the well-being of our people. The time has come to ask whether the thoughtless planning exercises in the last 70 years supported by the international development organisations – deservedly obsolete and now superseded in developed countries – should also be put an end to in Pakistani cities. Reconnecting planning with public health goals, as advocated by Sir Patrick Geddes one century ago and UN Sustainable Development Goals in 2017, would seem to be a useful starting point for devising decolonising urban planning in Pakistan.
The writer is associate professor and teaches transport and urban planning at Massey University, New Zealand