What I have learnt in 50 years of engagement with urban issues

The most important thing I have learned is that most projects have a very strong anti-poor bias and are primarily concerned with bricks and mortar. 

The poor are portrayed as helpless and incapable of taking decisions regarding their own lives. Students are asked to observe and pass judgements on their observations. But these judgements are often based on very small sample sizes. And once these numbers are cited, they become the ‘truth’ for other students and consultants to follow. 

The poor are seldom asked for their own definition of poverty.

Hard decisions

Education is one of the priorities of poor families everywhere. But the government schooling system is under-resourced, so low-income families prefer to send their children to neighbourhood private schools – operated by local entrepreneurs.

These are expensive, and as a result, families have to decide which child to send to school and which child to work. This is a very difficult decision and causes ruptures in the family.

Unlike neighbourhood schools, colleges and universities may be far away, and are also very expensive in terms of travelling time, as well as cost. Unsurprisingly, many young people give up on higher education as a result.

Culture and dissent stifled

The Pakistan state is anti-culture and against students organising themselves. Student political activity is frowned upon, if not persecuted, and arts, music, dance and drama are discouraged.

There was a time when student cards could subsidise travel, hostel charges, student canteens and library fees. All this has gone due to the neoliberal economic policies. Every student who is admitted to a university signs a form saying he or she will not indulge in any form of discussion or debate regarding politics or religion.

Shifting role of women – within and outside the home

In the last 20 years, the family structure and the roles and responsibilities of Karachi’s women have changed. We have moved from joint to nuclear families. As a result, women have become more independent and dominate the fields of education and health. 

The number of ‘non-arranged’ marriages is increasing rapidly, but so is divorce. The conservative segment of society feels this is because people do not follow their religion. But these changes in society are unstoppable.

There are now national women’s football, cricket and hockey teams, and women compete successfully in athletics and martial arts. They actively participate in politics, take part in demonstrations, and often arrange them.

Their public presence has increased, too, and many women are in important government and private sector jobs, including as heads of institutions. But in spite of fairly strong women’s movements, women complain that they still have a long way to go before they can use their independence to achieve some form of equality with their men. They earn, but they still have to cook and clean, too.

Growing inequality gap

The growing gap between the rich and poor is why better-income young men and women stand a better chance of being selected for national cultural and sports teams. The poor complain that elite schools and colleges use their social and political influence to get their students into the national teams.

The upper echelons of the judiciary, bureaucracy, business and the military are drawn from the elite private schools and universities.

Unsustainable housing density

Housing density is a seriously evolving problem. For example, 120 square yard plots (owned by the father or grandfather) are divided among the children. Each child wants his/her plot to have access to the road. This divides the plot, often into three, making the divided plot no more than 30 square feet at the roadside. 

This means that each person gets no more than a 10-foot frontage. And a first floor is sometimes added. So now at least six families are living in a plot with a very small frontage. 

This creates a situation of unbearable density and, as the population grows, there are further divisions and subdivisions and/or high rises which create densities of 1,000 to 1,200 persons per hectare.

Unaffordable health

In Pakistan, like most nations in the global South, the government struggles to meet health needs. This is especially so in low-income settlements. Unaffordable treatment costs as well as loss of income are among major causes. 

Other factors include the location of hospitals or medical facilities not where they are needed, and the emphasis put on curative rather than preventive health and environmental health. This determines the location and design of health-related infrastructure, but the relation between disease and architecture simply does not exist. 

The cost of curative medicine has become so high that many families are now heavily in debt because of it. Surveys show that people have shifted to hakeems (traditional healers) and homeopathic systems, so as to make medicine affordable.

These observations and concerns are evident at the national level. My next insight will focus on local issues in my home city of Karachi.

• A longer version of Arif Hasan’s 50-year reflections can be found in Dawn.