M. Waleed
How unregulated real estate expansion, regulatory capture, and horizontal urban development are commercializing basic public goods while accelerating social division and ecological collapse across Pakistan When you drive down any major highway in Pakistan, you can see many billboards advertising modern housing societies, gated communities and cantonment land development projects. These projects promise modern infrastructure, security, 24-hour electricity, better roads, and an overall elite lifestyle. It is sold to the public as progress and economic growth, but when you look closely, you realize what is actually happening to our land, environment, and communities, it is clear that this not real progress. This real estate business and its uncontrolled expansion are actually driving ecological and social collapse. I will call this “Destruction in the name of development.” Power and Social DivisionTo understand this issue, we must look at who controls power and development in Pakistan.In recent years, real estate has not been about building homes for people who need them; instead, it has become a way to achieve quick financial return and political power. Political leaders and powerful developers are directly involved in construction contracts, land acquisition, and state resource distribution. The most severely affected land is agricultural, land acquired cheaply, rebranded under sub-organizations or private developers, and sold for huge profits. Because the people making policy decisions are the same ones making profit from those contracts, it is very clear when the first priority is to make profit only by using public goods and resources, then long term planning and public administration are completely discarded in favor of short-term private gain. By prioritizing private development over public goods, those in power are actively destroying social cohesion and abandoning the common resident. Core Strength of the Nation is ShiveringPakistan is a naturally agricultural country, but this uncontrolled housing boom is directly affecting its core strength, which is agriculture and farmers. Cities are expanding across thousands of acres of agricultural farmland that was once rich fertile soil now covered in concrete (N. Ahmad, 2023).Also, the planners are more interested in profit-making. They are totally ignoring sustainable policies, environmental factors, natural waterways and the aftereffects of artificially altering local geography. Everything is Connected All these issues are interconnected, political instability enables corruption, which then leads to bad governance and poor infrastructure policies, furthermore, bad policies destroy natural waterways and farmland, and that destruction leads to floods, food insecurity, economic crisis and human displacement.
True development cannot be measured by how many gated communities are built or how much money real estate cartels make. If Pakistan continues to trade its fertile farmland and rural communities for concrete housing schemes, the country will end up destroying the very environment it depends on to survive. Can Land of the Pure Still be Saved?Our founders established this country with deep hope, ambition and a commitment to standing up for what is right. Every problem is curable, as long as a sign of hope and ambition still exists. Sadly, our current track shows a significant contradiction. On one hand, state initiatives like the Green Pakistan Initiative and the Living Indus Initiative claim to prioritize ecological restoration. On the other hand, we continue to destroy critical land and natural waterways, because of poorly planned infrastructure development and policies. This shows that we are heading nowhere but backward, and we are polishing the physical body of the nation but destroying its soul. To progress towards a sustainable future, the government of Pakistan needs to implement direct reforms in development and environmental policies, and this issue must be treated as an urgent national security priority.
There is an urgent need for policy and legislation evaluation. New legislation must be introduced to protect natural land integrity and the environment. A series of essential standards should be introduced and no project should receive a no-objection certificate (NOC) without meeting these ecological standards. Key municipal and development bodies, including water authorities, the irrigation department and the energy sector must operate collaboratively under a unified regional plan. Moreover, the government should launch housing projects, pairing them with long-term, low-interest loans, which will provide affordable housing for working-class families and generate a long-term economically beneficial cycle for state institutions. Most importantly, Pakistan has a majority-young population. The youth possess energy, ambition and the necessary technical capacity to make such sustainable reforms. There are many emerging young scientists and researchers, who can bring a positive change for the future development and policymaking.
Policymaking must move away from top-down directives, and instead originate from research institutions, providing young researchers with the resources to design evidence-based solutions. Pakistan needs to align its politics with ecological reality, and we as a nation need to make one promise today, “We must leave this country to future generations in a condition we ourselves wish to inherit today.”
—Independent Social Researcher, [email protected]