Adam Smith wrote that ‘in the lone houses and very small villages which are scattered about in so desert a country as the Highlands of Scotland, every farmer must be butcher, baker and brewer for his own family’. Consequently, Smith further discussed the concept of ‘urbanization enabling specialization’. Living in cities aids both learning and productivity, which helps in prosperity and livability of common citizens. The rhetoric associated with the advent of the steam engine and the industrial revolution can be précised as simply a phenomenon which led to cities having an influx of less productive labour from rural areas. Such dramatic transformation led to an absorption of labor force and thus settlement patterns changed and we refurbished our ways of managing our urban spaces. Soon, urbanization became a prevailing phenomenon – with some unintended consequences such as growth patterns and an absence of provision of basic services for the common citizens which led to a detraction from the common notion of the concept of ‘cities’. Sustainable Development Goal number eleven deals with ‘making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. Cities are often labelled as engines of growth and when cities grow, the economy grows; unmanaged urbanization, per contra, has a high tendency to become unsustainable. According to a December 2018 publication by UNDP – fifty five percent of Pakistan’s GDP is generated by cities and Pakistan generates 95 percent of its federal tax revenue from 10 major cities. However, the state of our so called urbanized cities is very substandard such as in infrastructure, access to basic services, mobility and mitigation of disasters. According to the World Bank, Pakistan’s urbanization is ‘messy and hidden’. The percentage of urban population of Pakistan is projected to be 49.45 percent by 2030. This number is a cause of concern since the existing urban conditions paint a bleak picture for future urbanization. A failure at governance has led to a lack of provision of basic services to common citizens – resulting in common sight on our roads such as people wiping out wiping shields and beggars rushing towards vehicles at traffic signals – what is worse is that most of them are children. Clearly, we have a market and policy vacuum. In this context, Pakistan’s performance on ‘SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities’ is a tale of unfulfilled dreams and shattered hopes for the burgeoning citizenry of Pakistan. Target 11.1 aims to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums by 2030. According to PSLM survey of 2018-19, the percentage of households which use solar energy for lighting stands at 4 percent in Pakistan. Similarly, households which live in housing units with only one room are 28 percent. If we consider only the urban areas of Pakistan, then 21 percent of the households live on rental properties, which increased from 18 percent in 2014-15. The percentage of urban households paying for piped water is 62 percent. Lastly, only 60 percent of households in urban areas use RCC/RBC materials for rooftops. These statistics do not match with the notion of urbanization. The percentage of urban population of Pakistan is projected to be 49.45 percent by 2030. This number is a cause of concern since the existing urban conditions paint a bleak picture for future urbanization The severity of these numbers heightens if we look at the percentage of monthly consumption expenditure by commodity groups as per COICOP. Households typically spend 36 percent on food and non-alcoholic beverages, 24 percent on housing, water, electricity, gas and others, 7 percent on transport, and 4 percent on education. For a developing country like Pakistan, these numbers do not match with the needed amount of investment in human capital. Households spend a major portion of their income on rents for as low as a single occupancy room. This is coupled with absence of basic services such as availability of clean drinking water, fuels for cooking, such as natural gas and absence of safe public spaces. Can a typical first quintile-urban household with an average monthly income of Rs 24,365 sustain their livelihood and enjoy a decent standard of living if they have to bear these additional expenses – many of which are supposed to be the state’s responsibility in the first place. Regionally, Pakistan has the lowest rate of saving – this should now make sense in light of the picture painted above. The increasing demands made on household income and rising inflation will result in lower savings. Living in society’s margin doubles the deprivations – which already is a precursor of living in a lower middle income country. Access to land has been associated with being privileged in our country. Sadly, many of our blue-collar workers have to live through the dilemma of not having equitable access to land because of bubbles in the real estate market. Housing schemes have also fared well for only vested group interests. As they say that the devil is in details – here the nightmarish phenomenon of slums cannot be forgotten. Slums – the deep pockets of poverty – are informal settlements and may consist of large urban agglomerations. Economically, as well as spatially, slums are a manifestation of intra-city equality. These slums were at the frontline of Covid-19, and we can now assess how our astronomical inequality can manifest themselves as our vulnerabilities. In 2014, the percentage of the population living in slums was 45.50 percent. Today, almost 65 percent of the population of Karachi resides in slums. But overall, we have a dearth of current updated data on the locations and numbers of slum settlements. This lack of data is amplified when this segment of the population’s social statistics are not calculated. In the case of our national census – how can we reduce multidimensional poverty if a significant portion of our population is not covered in alternate provincial or district level surveys. The recent example of Covid-19 highlighted the loopholes in the urbanization phenomenon and showed the deadliest side of events – where the already dilapidated state of social distancing and precautionary measures got hampered by the congestion phenomenon and lack of basic services such as water. Dr Izza Aftab is the chairperson of the Economics Department at IT University, Lahore / Noor Ul Islam is currently working as a Research Associate at the SDG Tech Lab established in collaboration with IT University, Lahore