• We must reverse this course by urgently enforcing smart planning

By Balach Khan

Pakistan’s most urgent crisis isn’t always headline news: it’s the relentless, unplanned conversion of our fertile agricultural land into concrete. As a law student, I see this reckless sprawl as a profound governance and ecological disaster. We are sacrificing our food security and destroying the critical biodiversity that sustains our environment for the short-term profits of real estate developers. This is a massive failure of planning that demands immediate national attention.

Our best farmland is an irreplaceable national asset, the very foundation of our agrarian economy. When a builder paves over these fields—particularly those near major cities like Lahore and Islamabad—they permanently decommission a regenerative food factory. This short-sighted practice leaves us perilously exposed to food shocks and drives inflation. We are literally eating the “seed corn” of Pakistan’s future, prioritizing speculative gains over our children’s food security.

The ecological costs are equally devastating. These fields are not empty; they are vital, active ecosystems. Unplanned construction causes severe habitat fragmentation, isolating and destroying populations of native flora and fauna. For instance, unchecked development along the Margalla Hills buffer zones pushes species like the common leopard into dangerous conflict with residents, while wetlands are erased, collapsing insect and bird populations. We are trading the resilience of nature for the fragility of concrete.

Read: The Impact of Urbanization on Pakistan’s Agricultural Land

The frustrating truth is that we have effective laws—like the Environmental Protection Act and various Town Planning Acts—but they are consistently undermined by powerful, well-connected lobbies and administrative indifference. The current system is operating exactly as designed by those who profit from environmental destruction.

We must reverse this course by urgently enforcing smart planning. I call on the media to treat the loss of farmland as a national security issue. Furthermore, our judiciary must actively intervene to uphold the constitutional right to a clean environment, demanding the immediate implementation of mandatory urban growth boundaries to protect the last remaining fertile land from being buried beneath concrete forever.

Read: The Uncontrolled Urbanization

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Balach Khan is a Law Student and lives in Islamabad. Email: balachkhan7776@gmail.com

The post Urban Sprawl Threatens Agricultural Sustainability first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Tanvir Ahmed Khan PhD

People’s perception stems from their experience while they are growing up in a location, may it be a village, thana, sun-divisional town or a city. One who grew up in Dhaka observed a paltry 200,000 inhabitants in an area spanning from Sadarghat to the Hardeo Glass Factory at Hatkhola. This was the fifties. Boats called ‘goina nouka’ (boats carrying cargo) used to ply through the Dholai Khal from the Buriganga River to transport raw materials from the adjoining villages to the Rai Shaheb er Bazaar. On their return trip they used to carry finished goods back to the villages.

Families of various income levels used to reside in Dhaka. There were ‘elite’ areas in Wari and Gandaria. Other locations inside Dhaka housed the middle income and low income families.

The Dhaka Improvement Trust (DIT) provided incentives with two bigha plots in Dhanmondi where the two-storied building would be constructed in one-third the area leaving the rest of the area for open space and planting trees. This was in the early fifties. People didn’t realize that one day these plots would become gold-mines. In the sixties with Dhaka becoming the second capital, areas like Banani and Gulshan were opened up to the public. Not that people were interested at that time for buying land since they were quite happy with their status quo.

As time passed, Dhaka became a megacity from a small town to a city to a metropolis. Density rose and different parts of Dhaka showed various persons per sq. km.

When people talk about densities in different cities in the developed countries, one is awed when one compares the density with Dhaka. There is no parallel since the density is nearly 20 times more

In the eighties, the garment industry was observed to be introduced into the economy. Slowly and steadily they became successful and drew in scores of people to work. They came from far and wide and were housed in innumerable slums all over Dhaka. This shaped the livability in urban informal settlements. The slums had an unauthorized status but the inhabitants had to have access to housing and services. These were crucial factors influencing their daily lives.

When people talk about densities in different cities in the developed countries, one is awed when one compares the density with Dhaka. There is no parallel since the density is nearly 20 times more. The life and living of the people in Dhaka is too different since the resilience they exhibit cannot be understood by the people of the west.

The high-density settlements in Dhaka conducive in providing the best possible quality of life were showing cultural acceptability by the actors. It was especially the women who were contributors to the overall livability. It shaped the quality of the place.

Unprecedented resources flowed into the investor’s pocket and there was an intolerable inequality in income compared to the inhabitants in the slums. It had created marginalized societies not able to cope with rising consumer prices.

Also read: Infographics: Urbanization and Urban Development in Bangladesh

We had for a long time looked up to the west for direction on how to live and design our cities. This is high time that the west has now to look at the east to how problems are solved. One instance during COVID-19 days will exemplify that people were not affected in the slums with 7 to 8 persons living in a 100 sft of space. Immunity was the ingredient that debarred the pandemic to enter the slums. This the west will not understand. Disaster preparedness is an area where Bangladesh has become an iconic country which many countries have now come to emulate.

These days the metro was introduced. People from Uttara North seem to travel to Motijheel in 35 minutes which earlier took nearly 3 hours. Private cars are not being used these days. They prefer the metro. This is a blessing in disguise! Less private cars on the road, the better! Also, the buses are not receiving appropriate number of passengers to ply on the road because of the introduction of the metro. There is only one MRT at present. Eventually there will be five more routes. Imagine the scenario!

There is the Elevated Expressway (EE) which was also introduced simultaneously but could not make a thunderous success as the Metro. We will have to wait and see that when the EE is extended all the way to the Chittagong highway, it might have a very positive impact.

New perspectives are drawn from the cities cited may it be Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai, Turkey, Istanbul, Cairo, Karachi or Delhi, not to speak of Dhaka. Each has its own improvisation but the ‘Raga’ is the same.

New town is developing within Dhaka. One such is Purbachal. This is going to be a self-contained conurbation and will be a Central Business District as the many others in Dhaka megacity (Motijheel, Gulistan, Kawran Bazaar, Dhanmondi, Tejgaon, Banani, Gulshan, Uttara, etc.).

The above few paragraphs present a prelude which was necessary according to the reviewer to introduce the seven articles in this Book and review the pros and cons with megacity city Dhaka as the anchor.

New perspectives are drawn from the cities cited may it be Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai, Turkey, Istanbul, Cairo, Karachi or Delhi, not to speak of Dhaka. Each has its own improvisation but the ‘Raga’ is the same.

The review of the book would commence with the article of Syeda Jafrina Nancy captioned ‘Uncovering the hidden dynamics of densification: A case study of Dhaka’. What is revealing is the investigation of intervention of density followed by the residents’ perspectives. The conclusion is even more interesting. Could we think of this perspective where empirical observation revealed that the residential areas of Dhaka perceived as high-density settlements are within the threshold of cultural acceptability of the residents! And following this finding, prior to formulating density zoning of urban areas, ‘culturally acceptable higher densities conducive in providing the best possible quality of life should be identified and taken into consideration for any given demography’.

Similar conclusion is drawn in the article of Yasmin Ara’s ‘The pursuit of livability: A Dhaka-Delhi analysis of multiscalar private entrepreneur’s role in shaping livability in urban informal settlements’. It emphasizes on the well-being of informal settlement residents. It states that “recent thinking on urban poverty often neglects the private sector’s potential to contribute to the provision of low income housing”. The case study in Delhi shows that the ‘unauthorized’ status of the settlement, declared by the state has significantly influenced the overall built environment of the area. “Much like in Dhaka, inhabitants of Delhi also prioritize access to housing and services as crucial factors influencing livability”.

Women have been given due emphasis. The patriarchal society traditionally assigned household duties but women immensely shaped the experiences and everyday life of their households. Everyday life was adjudged as trivial and inconsequential and this underestimation was proven wrong as everyday life actually holds profound influence in the discourse of urbanity. It inevitably leads to a conspicuous gendered perspective. “The indispensable and gallant role that women play in translating infrastructure into sustenance depicts them as essential components of infrastructure and as contributors to the overall livability that shapes the quality of a place”.

The issue of dichotomy of ‘First World models’ and ‘Third World problems’ was highlighted! The learning of inherent potentials from Third World cities’ was observed. The policy approaches of urban informality and their economic potential can lead to socio economic entities. The article of Quazi Mahtab Zaman titled “The perils of premature globalization and birth of megacities: Social exclusion and spatial injustice in Dhaka” introduced these issues. The area of policy concern is the effect of globalization on income distribution and social differentiation. It has created unprecedented wealth and resources in the investor’s pockets of the Dhaka’s few urbanites. The intolerable level of deprivation of income of poor wages has been observed and thus lack of sustainable livability. Recommended was Decentralization, an opportunity missed as part of the planning instrument. As a result, it has created marginalized societies not able to cope with rising consumer prices and the paraphernalia of unaffordable houses and difficulty in accessing the services of hospitals, schools, colleges and universities. Premature globalization has taken place in Dhaka culminating in a gap between the various stakeholders. This has shown the incapability of policy planners in facing the challenges that Dhaka city experiences.

In contrast to the other cities, Beijing and Shanghai fall in a different league. The high rate of urban expansion has been observed challenging whether sustainable growth can be achieved within a megacity context. The moot question is whether these two megacities can harness effectively the skills of the workers, capacity for their hard work in order to promote a more socially equitable and environment friendly future. This is reflected in the article presented by Ian G. Cook titled “Two Chinese Megacities compared: Beijing and Shanghai”.

The housing crisis is closely connected to the urbanization process and the slums have emerged as a significant settlement form catering to the housing demand of the urban poor. In Mumbai, the focus was on Dharavi. This is one of the largest slums in Asia. A slum such as Dharavi is presently the residence of a huge number of Mumbai’s population. The settlement in Dharavi began in 1884 during the British colonial period. The second period was in 1947. The third period was from 1991 to present where the government adopted a ‘neoliberal market’ policy. This led to increased commercialization in the area. In recent years, real estate, developers, entrepreneurs, and financiers are attracted by the profits. “Dharavi from Mega-slum to Urban Paradigm’ is based on anthropological research. For decades, the slum has attracted leatherworkers and has had a booming leather industry. This refers to the article by Jamie P. Halsall & Kalim Siddiqui titled “The transformation of Mumbai as Megacity: A case study of slums and environmental degradation”.

The Dharavi slum is located in the heart of Mumbai. The majority is Hindus and most of them are from Dalit castes (untouchable Hindus). The others are Muslims and Christians. With this population as its strength, online search would reveal that it is a hub of a million informal enterprises and even Prince Charles eulogizing it as a model to be emulated for sustainable living. For the poor no such support as housing loans is available. For poor households it has been regarded as a non-productive investment and the poor have been left to fend for themselves. The housing crisis for the poor households in Mumbai still persists and the neoliberal policy adopted in 1991 accelerated it further.

Important recommendation is the plan for the future to ensure Dharavi is a better place to live and work. Few actions need to be taken: a new focus in planning urban development; city authorities to legitimize legal development as a part of urban planning and development; promote low-income households to invest. This can make the resident’s accommodation safer, improve living standards, and improve transportation connectivity.

Reform, revivalism and transformation are the three pillars of urban environment has been elaborated by Ersan Koc in his article titled “Reform, Revivalism and Transformation; Third Millennium Trialectics of urban Turkey and Istanbul”. Ideas on capital accumulation and urban struggle have been highlighted to show the relations between forces of local/urban politics, modes of objection and protest and intentions and/or destinations of renewal and redevelopment models and patterns of Turkish cities.

Ashraf Kamal and Walaa Abdel Mohsen in their article titled “Maintaining a Sustainable Unique Place within Cairo Mega City: Lessons for current development and future prospects on Post Modernity and Hybridization”. The major objective of the research is to observe the transformation of Cairo as a mega city. Emphasis was given to the historical background of Cairo downtown highlighting the potentials and impacts of Al-Ataba place, and providing projections to new places.

Suneela Ahmed in her article titled “An alternative understanding of space: Maqamiat as a tool for Karachi’s urban space design” explores space from a local vantage point, looking inwards for aspiration rather than towards the West or Far East. Sense of social affiliations is highlighted which are very strong amongst the neighbors belonging to ethnically homogenous clusters which gives a sense of security and belonging. This ‘particularity’ is recognized as an intangible aspect of Maqamiat (which roughly translates as localness). Authors Nancy, Yasmin and Suneela are bonded together since their finding reveals a new perspective of ‘localness’, even though where the dwellers live is densely populated. It is amazing that they feel comfortable in this dense environment.

Also read: Megacities in the Global South should strengthen urban governance

This book deserves kudos as it has brought in a new perspective of Maqamiat where the dwellers feel comfortable and secured in the slums although the density is ludicrously high compared to the cities of the west.

Tasleem Shakur founded the first international open access refereed journal and celebrated 20 years of its international existence with an International workshop on ‘Megacities of the Global South in the 2020s’. This was a phenomenal setting where the Global South Megacities debate was brought first to Dhaka. This vital background needs to be acknowledged.

The Journal and Workshops’ objectives had an intention to compile a Volume through a proper anonymous review process. Few authors have acknowledged at the end of their articles.

The Editors have done an excellent job in identifying these seven articles. It gives a flavor of in-depth quality of academia. It brings a breath of fresh air since it ushers in a perspective that the audience was not ready for. But once introduced to this new finding and analysis, the audience of the east have some comfort in stating that the west have something to learn and understand from these deliberations.

Also read: Urbanization destroying agriculture in Hyderabad district

The Workshop report is a piece of workmanship since it summarizes the proceedings in such a professional way that much of the details have been woven with writing dexterity. It is written in an extremely lucid fashion that the readers will find a comfort in immersing themselves immediately with the substance of the workshop. Some of the articles are difficult to comprehend at first reading and the readers would have felt comfortable if it was as lucid as the Workshop report.

 The squatter resettlement at Bhashantek back in the early eighties, which was a topic for a dissertation of MURP, is a stark example of planning a project for the poor gone berserk which ultimately in the nineties transformed itself into a middle class housing area.

This looks like a proper text book. As Prof. Magda Sibley has stated this book would be of a great value and should provide guidance to the academics, planners, architects, engineers, environmentalists, activists and students from Global North and South of the contemporary world to combat the upcoming challenges of ever-increasing mega-urbanization.

Indexing might not be required since it contains full referencing like a standard style journal publication.

The substance of the article in the Book sets a trend of urban population and shows it is skewed towards the global South since it is the most rapidly urbanizing part of the world. ‘Megacities of the South’ are increasingly becoming a political power-group as they are rapidly transforming from consumer to producing societies.

In 1977, the third batch of UN Fellows of the University of Sheffield was taken to the new town Peterborough where the overspill population of London was supposed to be relocated. The retired and the new generation looking for jobs would be the pioneers in this new town.  This planning of the west with a tiny population compared to Dhaka (where I come from) cannot be thought of.  Although decentralization is a popular word, it is restricted to rhetoric. A little bit of hope currently has seen the light of the day since 100 economic zones are being planned in Bangladesh of which ten are already underway? A sizable population has been employed at a southern economic zone at Mirershorai which essentially stopped the exodus of the population to Dhaka and other larger cities.

Also read: The Uncontrolled Urbanization

The squatter resettlement at Bhashantek back in the early eighties, which was a topic for a dissertation of MURP, is a stark example of planning a project for the poor gone berserk which ultimately in the nineties transformed itself into a middle class housing area.

Having visited a few cities of the west, it is obvious for one to observe that the focal point of the city is the river. Both the river Thames in London and river Seine in Paris is observed to have its urban dwellings, market place, malls and other important sites overlooking the river. Not in Dhaka! We have encroached the river by illegally constructing factory buildings, etc. Pollution of the river is continuing with industrial waste, etc. Currently, the government is trying to demarcate all the rivers in Bangladesh. Walkways are being constructed along the rivers. Dredging is taking place in few rivers to make it navigable.  The launch ghat (Station) at Sadarghat has a new look and few urban buildings are being constructed on the river bank.

A few critical comments have to be mentioned. To pursue consistency, if all the articles had an abstract, key words, introduction, methodology, findings, analysis and conclusion section with footnotes and references, then the audience would have less difficulty in perusing the articles.

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Dr. Tanvir A. Khan is an Economist and an Urban & Regional Planner; former Vice-Chancellor of Hamdard University Bangladesh; Currently he is the Chairman of Sunnydale School.

The post Book Review: Megacities of the Global South in the 2020’s first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Dongsheng News

With over 20 million inhabitants each, Shanghai and Beijing are among the “hypercities” of the Global South, including Delhi, São Paulo, Dhaka, Cairo, and Mexico City, far surpassing the “megacities” of the Global North like London, Paris, or New York. Walking the streets in China’s cities, you will however, quickly notice one marked difference – the absence of large slums or pervasive homelessness that is so common to most of the rest of the world.

Slums were not uncommon in Chinese cities a few decades ago, from the precarious working class districts of 1930s Shanghai to the shanty towns of British-occupied Hong Kong in the 1950s onwards. How did China manage to develop in a way that decreased mass housing precarity?  What are the structural reasons behind it?

This article looks into how the Chinese government deals with homelessness, how it relates to socialist construction, and how China confronts the challenges posed by rapid economic development, urbanization, and the migration of recent decades.

Why did mass urbanization not create large slums in China?

When reform and opening up began in the late 1970s, 83 percent of China’s population lived in the countryside. By 2021, the proportion of the rural population had fallen to 36 percent. During this period of mass urbanization, over 600 million people migrated from rural areas to cities.

Today, there are 296 million internal “migrant workers” (农民工, nóngmín gōng), comprising over 70 percent of the country’s total workforce. Migrant workers became the economic engine of China’s rapid growth, which created the world’s largest middle class of 400 million people.

With the acceleration of urbanization in the 2000s, the Chinese government began to promote large-scale transformation of the old areas of the cities

This historic migration came with many challenges, including the emergence of “urban villages” that had poor living conditions and inadequate infrastructure. Although basic amenities – such as running water, electricity, gas, and communications – were provided, sanitation, public services, fire safety, and other such amenities resembled that of rural villages. Due to lower rents and the lack of other affordable housing, urban villages are largely inhabited by migrant workers.

With the acceleration of urbanization in the 2000s, the Chinese government began to promote large-scale transformation of the old areas of the cities, focusing on renovation of historically deteriorated neighborhoods and the removal of dangerous housing. Between 2008 and 2012, 12.6 million households in urban villages were rebuilt nationwide. At the same time, efforts were made to construct public rental or low-rent housing. For instance, in Shanghai today, families of three or more people with a monthly income of less than 4,200 Yuan per person can apply for low-rent housing, with the monthly rent being just a few hundred Yuan (or five percent of monthly household income). In 2022, the central government announced the construction of 6.5 million units of low-cost rental housing in 40 cities, representing 26 percent of the total new housing supply in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025).

Although policies encouraged migration to cities for industrial and service jobs, rural residents never lost their access to land

Indeed the explosion of rural-to-urban migration in recent decades is not a phenomenon unique to China. While understanding that there are different definitions of “slums” used by countries and international organizations, they all point to the same tendency: since the 1970s, slum growth outpaced urbanization rates across the Global South. China’s efforts to upgrade existing precarious housing or build new affordable housing does not, however, explain why China did not develop slums like in so many other countries. Urbanization in China, therefore, must be understood within the context of socialist construction.

What is the “hukou” system and what does it have to do with socialism?

One unique characteristic of China’s urbanization process is that, although policies encouraged migration to cities for industrial and service jobs, rural residents never lost their access to land in the countryside. In the 1950s, the Communist Party of China (CPC) led a nationwide land reform process, abolishing private land ownership and transforming it into collective ownership. During the economic reform period, beginning in 1978, a “Household Responsibility System” (家庭联产承包责任制 jiātíng lián chǎn chéngbāo zérèn zhì) was created, which reallocated rural agricultural land into the hands of individual households. Though agricultural production was deeply impacted, collective land ownership remained and land was never privatized.

Today, China has one of the highest homeownership rates in the world, surpassing 90 percent, and this includes the millions of migrant workers who rent homes in other cities. This means that when encountering economic troubles, such as unemployment, urban migrant workers can return to their hometowns, where they own a home, can engage in agricultural production, and search for work locally. This structural buffer plays a critical role in absorbing the impacts of major economic and social crises. For example, during the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s export-oriented economy, especially of manufactured goods, was severely hit, causing about 30 million migrant workers to lose their jobs. Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when service and manufacturing jobs were seriously impacted, many migrant workers returned to their homes and land in the countryside.

Every Chinese person has an assigned urban or rural hukou status that grants them access to social welfare benefits

Beyond land reform, a system was created to manage the mass migration of people from the countryside to the cities, to ensure that the movement of people aligned with the national planning needs of such a populous country. Though China has had some form of migration restriction for over 2,000 years, in the late 1950s, the country established a new “household registration system” (户口 or hùkǒu) to regulate rural-to-urban migration. Every Chinese person has an assigned urban or rural hukou status that grants them access to social welfare benefits (subsidized public housing, education, health care, pension, and unemployment insurance, etc.) in their hometown, but which are restricted in the cities they move to for work. While reformation of the hukou system is ongoing, the lack of urban hukou status forces many migrant parents to spend long periods away from their families and they must leave their children in their grandparents’ care in their hometowns, referred to as “left-behind children” (留守儿童 liúshǒu értóng). Though the number has been decreasing over the years, there are still an estimated seven million children in this situation. Today, 65.22 percent of China’s population lives in cities, but only 45.4 percent have urban hukou. Although this system deterred the creation of large urban slums, it also reinforced serious inequities of social welfare between urban and rural areas, and between residents within a city based on their hukou status.

How does the Chinese government deal with homelessness?

In the early 2000s, the issues of residential status, rights of migrant workers, and treatment of urban homeless people became a national matter. In 2003, the State Council – the highest executive organ of state power – issued the “Measures for the Rescue and Management of Itinerant and Homeless in Urban Areas”. The new regulation created urban relief stations providing food rations and temporary shelters, abolished the mandatory detention system of people without hukou status or housing, and placed the responsibility on the local authorities for finding housing for homeless people in their hometowns.

Relief stations provide homeless people with food and basic accommodations, help those who are seriously ill access healthcare, assist them to return to the locations of their household

Under these measures, cities like Shanghai have set up relief stations for homeless people. When public security – the local police – and urban management officials encounter homeless people, they must assist them in accessing nearby relief stations. All costs are covered by the city’s fiscal budget. For example, the relief management station in Putuo District (with the fourth lowest per capita GDP of Shanghai’s 16 districts and a resident population of 1.24 million), provided shelter and relief to an average of 24.3 homeless people a month from June 2022 to April 2023, which could include repeated cases.

Relief stations provide homeless people with food and basic accommodations, help those who are seriously ill access healthcare, assist them to return to the locations of their household registration by contacting their relatives or the local government, and arrange free transportation home when needed.

Upon returning home, the local county-level government is responsible to help the homeless people, including contacting relatives for care and finding local employment. For a very small number of people who are elderly, have disabilities, or do not have relatives nor the ability to work, the local township people’s government, or the Party-run street office, will provide national support for them in accordance with the “method of providing for extremely impoverished persons”, which is stipulated in the 2014 “Interim Measures for Social Assistance”. The content of the support includes providing basic living conditions, giving care to impoverished individuals who cannot take care of themselves, providing treatment for diseases, and handling funeral affairs, etc.

This series of relief management measures ensure that administrative law enforcement personnel in the city do not simply expel homeless people from the city, but must guarantee that they receive proper assistance, in terms of housing, work, and support systems.

What are the current challenges of urbanization, migration, and inequality?

While creating relief centers is an important advancement, it is clear that shelters are not a structural solution and they alone cannot meet the needs of a metropolis like Shanghai of 25 million people, let alone the country’s 921 million urban residents. The government has been implementing many structural reforms to address inequality, and to make the cities and the countryside more liveable.

In his report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC, President Xi Jinping said: “We have identified the principal contradiction facing Chinese society as that between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life, and we have made it clear that closing this gap should be the focus of all our initiatives.” The unbalanced and inadequate development points to the gap between the countryside and cities, between underdeveloped and industrialized regions, and between the rich and poor.

On a broader scale, the anti-poverty campaigns – highlighted by the eradication of extreme poverty in 2020 – and the rural revitalization strategy have helped alleviate the pressure of migrant workers moving to the cities. The government has invested substantial funds and resources, using diversified ways to alleviate poverty beyond income-transfer schemes, including developing rural industry, education, health care, and infrastructure. These measures fundamentally improved the living and employment environment in rural areas and created more opportunities so that people have the option to stay and work in the countryside. For example, every year, more migrants are returning from cities back to their hometowns, which increased from 2.4 million (2015) to 8.5 million people (2019).

The government has taken efforts to tackle the high cost of housing, education, and health care faced by all Chinese people

Over the last decade, China has implemented reforms to balance the easing of hukou residency requirements and to improve the social welfare of migrant workers, while ensuring that urbanization and population distribution responds to the country’s needs. Since 2010, major cities have gradually relaxed the household registration restrictions for school admission, allowing children of migrant workers to attend public schools like children with local hukou. Furthermore, according to the 2019 Urbanization Plan, cities with populations below three million people are required to remove all hukou restrictions, while bigger cities (under five million) can begin to relax restrictions. The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and the country’s economic strategy until 2035 focus on redistributing income through tax reform, reducing the gap between the rich and poor, and removing the barriers that prevent millions of migrant workers from enjoying the full benefits of urban life. In 2021, the government invested US$5.3 billion to relax the hukou residency rules, and to also boost urban migrants’ spending power as part of the country’s “dual circulation” policy.

These efforts to tackle the “three mountains” of the high cost of housing, education, and health care faced by all Chinese people, including migrants, is at the center of the government’s vision and policy reforms towards “common prosperity” for all its citizens and the building of a modern socialist society.

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Courtesy: Orinoco Tribune (Posted on Jul 10, 2023)

The post WHY ARE THERE NO SLUMS IN CHINA? first appeared on Sindh Courier.

If you are an urban dweller, you may know the real meaning of urbanization. However, this does not always indicate your sufficient insight in the uncontrolled urbanization. To form a causal chain, it is right to say that more jobs, more services in the urban side and absence of land in the countryside force people to migrate to larger cities which brings about uncontrolled urbanization. As a result, some problems arise such as unemployment, inadequacy of infrastructure/services and some environmentally unwanted events as well as unpleasant demographic incidents.

To begin with, it is a good point to dig up the reasons for people to come to larger cities. First of all, by all accounts, cities are perceived to offer a wide variety of job opportunities on the grounds that there are very different branches of businesses in cities. In as much as unemployment level is hugely high in the rural areas and the work is only about farming in contrast to countless business sectors in chief cities, more and more people choose searching for their chances in the metropolis.

Secondly, comes another significant reason: There are better services in cities. As a matter of fact, transportation is extremely developed so as to make use of time efficiently. Medical services are supported with the latest technological improvements, there are unbelievably modern hospitals. Besides, education is taken into account seriously. There are very high-quality schools with excellent teachers, teaching with up-to-date techniques. None of these can be found in the rural areas, at this stage.

Apart from these pull factors causing migration to big cities, there is a strong push factor stemming from absence of enough land. It would be very hard and useless to cultivate the land if it is too small to make an agricultural production. One important thing triggers this incident increasingly during the last years; namely, division of land. To explain, in the rural areas when someone dies, the inheritance would usually be the land. Yet, the land is divided into many parts due to the fact that in the countryside it is common to have lots of children and they all have rights to take one part of the inherited land. Therefore, what they get are useless small lands rather than a gigantic land which is capable of making a great deal of agricultural production itself. The inability to do the only thing, farming, again brings about migration to big cities with the hopes of making money.

Ashfaque Sangi

Karachi Sindh

The post The Uncontrolled Urbanization first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Tando Jam

A Ph.D. Scholar of Sindh Agriculture University in his research has found that the fertile agriculture lands of Hyderabad district are rapidly being converted into residential schemes, which could lead to food shortages and serious environmental problems in the future.

Moula Bux Pirzada of Department of Agricultural Economics at Sindh Agriculture University, has proved in his Ph.D. research that Hyderabad has become one of the fastest moving districts in the country with regard to urbanization, with a lot of fertile agricultural lands converting into residential colonies, which is severely affecting agriculture, orchards, forests, and environment.

Pirzada, who submitted his thesis to the Vice Chancellor, suggested that agricultural experts and relevant government agencies should play their role in the protection of fertile agricultural lands.

Dr. Fateh Marri, Vice Chancellor, Sindh Agriculture University, speaking on this occasion, endorsed the scholar’s findings and said that the population of the country is increasing rapidly, and fertile lands are converting into housing schemes.

He said that researcher Moula Bux Pirzada has researched important topic, and suggestions are valuable for saving agricultural land, increasing production per acre, and expanding the scope of research work on new species.

Dr. Aijaz Ali Khooharo, Dean Faculty of Agricultural Social Sciences, Dr. Habibullah Magsi, Dr. Muhammad Hanif Lakho, Dr. Ghulam Murtaza Sahto, Director Advanced Studies, Dr. Mubeen Lodhi, and others were also present. On this occasion, the thesis of the PhD scholar was handed over to the Vice Chancellor Dr. Fateh Marri, and approval was given to award the PhD degree. (PR)

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The post Urbanization destroying agriculture in Hyderabad district first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Zaheer Udin Babar Junejo

Above 5 million deaths were reported around the world due to Coronavirus during the last 21 months, each new wave getting worse with new variants. Now again the media is threatening a new variant known as Omicron. Lockdown and social restrictions imposed by government badly affected our economy and disenfranchised our social fabric. Almost each of us is at his knees, and essential food item prices are at the hike.

Unfortunately, most nations on the globe are still striving to understand the pandemic and its management. We have only just started to understand the disease better and getting familiar with new SOPs and business guidelines. Life is becoming a race where rules keep changing.

Almost every institution is trying to cut its costs, which is slowing down the recovery process. Urbanization is at its fullest extent, and pandemic has exposed that living in cities is very costly and risky, overcrowding in cities is also resulting in high infection rates. It’s time authorities should promote towns with controllable populations.

Our health system seems to be focused on vaccination and record-keeping. No doubt the online registration system proved to be the best solution but the health system, in general, has failed, as one can hardly access cheaper and trustworthy medicines. Day to day economics is at a halt, new social values, new food intake patterns, joblessness, working and studying from home are some of the factors affecting the state of our mental health.

Nobody is sure how soon our society will again enjoy the fitness and the quality of life we were used to. Working remotely has made virtual connectivity compulsory. The digital push that is now taking place is accelerating changes in traditional business models, and soon the chamber of commerce will be replaced with cartels and net-based trade channels. Digital currency is replacing our traditional old currency models. The urban services sector is shrinking; generally, services structures require restructuring. Doorstep or virtual services are needed of the time. But even today, the majority of our rural residents is disconnected and hardly can find access to media and the internet. In such a situation their marginalization will only increase challenges for the nation.

Along with social safety nets, creating jobs or designing opportunities for self-employment will be a key in economic recovery. Authorities should take measures to utilize every source to educate its citizens that Covid19 is real and part of our lives now. It requires some precautions to avoid further spread. I am afraid with current circumstances we might have the rise of new opportunist groups. It’s time to strengthen the relationship between state and individuals with incremental reforms and welfare programs. Ultimately disruption is what drives long-living standards. This is the time when we need to embrace these seismic changes and fuel our hearts with innovations.

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Zaheer Udin Babar Junejo is a Hyderabad-based Development Consultant. He can be approached at email: zaheer.junejo@gmail.com

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