Copyright

by

Raviya Mysorewala

2021

The Report Committee for Raviya Mysorewala

Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Report

APPROVED BY

SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Bjorn Sletto, Supervisor

Alex Karner

Deconstructing Urban Utopias: The Case of

Bahria Town, Pakistan

by

Raviya Mysorewala

Report

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Science in Community and Regional

Planning

The University of Texas at Austin

August 2021

iv

Abstract

Deconstructing Urban Utopias: The Case of

Bahria Town, Pakistan

Raviya Mysorewala, MSCRP

The University of Texas at Austin, 2021

Supervisor: Bjorn Sletto

This report outlines the rationalities behind planning practices in Pakistan using the

case of Bahria Town. Studying themes used in the promotion and design of Bahria Town,

this report argues that planning in Pakistan takes inspiration from cities of the Global North,

resulting in mechanisms that are incompatible with Pakistan’s context. Such practices

focus on aesthetics and adversely affect the urban majority of the country which is poor.

The report details the implications that planning practices of Bahria Town, if unregulated

and taken forward, can bear on the future of planning in Pakistan.

v

Table of Contents

List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... vi

List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER ONE: CASE BACKGROUND .................................................................................9

Planning in Pakistan .............................................................................................................9

Background of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad ................................................................13

History and Background of Bahria Town ..........................................................................15

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ....................20

CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS ............................................................................................27

Internationalism .................................................................................................................30

Modernity ...........................................................................................................................38

Exclusivity .........................................................................................................................44

Nature and Greenery ..........................................................................................................48

CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................51

REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................55

vi

List of Tables

Table 1: Themes and their synonyms explored for a quantitative analysis of Bahria’s

Twitter posts....................................................................................................6

vii

List of Figures

Figure 1: Rafi Cricket Stadium in Bahria Town Karachi Source:

https://bahriatown.com/rafi-cricket-stadium-karachi/ ..................................32

Figure 2: Dancing fountains in Bahria Town Karachi Source:

https://bahriatown.com/bahria-dancing-fountains/ .......................................33

Figure 3: Bahria Adventure Land in Karachi Source: https://bahriatown.com/bahria-

adventure-land-karachi/ ................................................................................33

Figure 4: Replica of Eiffel Tower in Bahria Town Lahore Source:

https://bahriatown.com/sector-e-f/ ................................................................34

Figure 5: Replica of Statue of Liberty in Bahria Town Islamabad Source:

https://bahriatown.com/phase-8-phase-8-extension/ ....................................35

Figure 6: Replica of Trafalgar Square in Bahria Town Islamabad & Rawalpindi

Source: https://bahriatown.com/safari-villas-2/ ............................................36

Figure 7: Ahram-e-Misr in Bahria Town Lahore Source:

https://bahriatown.com/ahram-e-misr/ ..........................................................37

Figure 8: Bahria Heights in Karachi Source: https://bahriatown.com/bahria-heights/ ......41

Figure 9: Opal 225 in Bahria Town Karachi featuring a white glossy building with

glass exterior. Source: https://bahriatown.com/opal-225/ ............................42

Figure 10: Central Park Apartments in Bahria Town Karachi featuring white, glossy

and glass exterior. Source: https://bahriatown.com/central-park-

apartments/ ....................................................................................................43

Figure 11: Bahria Sports City in Karachi with a glossy structure Source:

https://bahriatown.com/bahria-sports-city/ ...................................................44

viii

Figure 12: Newspaper articles featured on Bahria Town’s website that juxtapose

Bahria's developments against Pakistan's problems. Source:

https://bahriatown.com/about/ ......................................................................45

Figure 13: Newspaper article featured on Bahria Town's website that idealizes

Bahria's practices as a model for the government Source:

https://bahriatown.com/about/ ......................................................................46

Figure 14: Twitter post promoting homogeneity by stating that Bahria Town residents

share the same ideologies. Source:

https://twitter.com/BahriaTownOffic/status/1399984155044290561 ..........47

Figure 15: Twitter post that claims Bahria Town’s environment to be eco-friendly

Source:

https://twitter.com/BahriaTownOffic/status/1385088262365138944 ..........49

1

INTRODUCTION

Many cities in the Global South are confronted with the challenge of unplanned growth

and expansion that continue to put pressure on its already overburdened resources and

infrastructure. Cities in Pakistan such as Karachi Lahore and Islamabad are no exception.

When this unplanned growth challenges the formal order, many citizens find themselves

anxious amongst crime, congestion and chaos of these cities. While life worsens for the

poor, which constitute the urban majority, many privileged classes continue to surround

themselves with high walls in their gated enclaves. Many of these gated enclaves have been

mostly residential with the need to commute outside for work, education, recreation and

other daily tasks. However, Malik Riaz, a renowned and powerful real estate developer

challenged the traditional designs of gated enclaves within Pakistan. He founded Bahria

Town, a master planned gated community, in different cities of Pakistan. Featured as a

“vision of suburbia which seems a world away from the rest of Pakistan’s seething, traffic-

choked and crumbling cities” (Gulf News, 2013), this gated enclave promises residential

facilities along with healthcare, education, employment and recreation within the same

boundaries.

Cities in Pakistan have been unable to cope with the rising housing demand that has

accompanied their growth. Pakistan currently faces a housing backlog of 11-12 million

units (NPHP, n.d.)1. As a result, the role of the private sector as the housing supplier has

continued to increase. Such housing mainly caters to the middle and upper classes, giving

1 To learn more about the program visit: http://nphp.com.pk/

2

rise to spatial segregation along socio-economic lines. The recently inducted government

announced a public housing program called Naya Pakistan Housing Program (NPHP),

which promised to deliver five million housing units but there has been no substantial

progress (Khalil et al, 2019). Other earlier housing projects such as Karachi’s Korangi in

the 1960s, the resettlement of informal residents in the 2000s, and the Punjab Ashiana

Housing Scheme in 2010 either failed to keep up with the demand or faced major obstacles

in construction and implementation. Due to poor provision of public housing, the poor

urban majority relies on informal housing, which currently accounts for 40% of Pakistan’s

population (World Bank, 2018)2. While the recent government initiated a public housing

program, it also launched a massive anti-encroachment drive that violently bulldozed

several informal settlements. This worsened the housing problem and further pushed the

poor to the periphery.

However, with the growing power of the private sector, the peripheries of

Pakistan’s major cities are also being taken over by the elite. Such is the case of Bahria

Town. Initially founded in 1997 in the city of Islamabad, Bahria Town is now known to be

the biggest real estate project in Pakistan. The master-planned gated development sits at

the edges of three major cities, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. It is marketed as a “city

within a city” that is unavailable anywhere else in the country. Its design is said to be

inspired by various renowned landmarks and spaces such as New York Central Park,

Trafalgar Square in London, Eiffel Tower in Paris, and Sheikh Zayed in Dubai. With its

2 View breakdown of statistics here:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.SLUM.UR.ZS?locations=PK

3

architectural designs and facilities claimed to be in line with international standards, Bahria

Town promises a global and ‘modern’ experience that is free from the problems associated

with Pakistan’s congested cities.

However, the utopian picture that the Bahria Town developers paint erases the

violence that enabled the existence of this mega project. The Bahria Group approached

farmers who were settled on the outskirts of the city of Islamabad. The farmers were pushed

into selling their land with the belief that they would benefit from the compensation

received. However, some never received a settlement in return for their land and others had

their land taken away without their consent. When the developers expanded the project to

Karachi, they illegally bought government owned land which was granted to a private

housing authority for a low-cost housing scheme. The developers then expanded the

coverage of Bahria Town Karachi to nearby villages, illegally and violently evicting the

residents of those villages in the process.

The fact that Bahria Town was illegally developed on government land is, in the

eyes of the law, as informal as the informal settlements of low-income communities. While

the government intervened and halted the expansion of Bahria Town Karachi, the Supreme

Court ruling later granted the land to Bahria Town in return for a fine. This regressive

approach to law that allows informal activities of the upper class while disallowing those

of the poor is referred as “arranged urbanism” (Koch, 2015). It shows that Pakistan’s

planning approach uses aesthetic ordering, which involves judgment based on outer

characteristics of a place and whether a space conforms to the aesthetic grid of norms

(Ghertner, 2011). The focus on aesthetics and physical design emerged in Europe and U.S.

4

in the 19th century even though the context in which the urban issues emerged were very

different. Yet, as shown in the case of Bahria Town, the developers are determined to stick

to design standards and aesthetics that have gained he status of ‘world-class’ through

assumptions about ideal design forms. This illustrates how the planning approach in

Pakistan is modelled after systems in other parts of the world. The government’s approval

and collusion with the project also shows that planning in Pakistan is detached from on-

ground realities of the country.

Considering that Bahria Town is able to collude with the government, circumvent

land use laws and develop at an unprecedented speed, I pose the following question: What

does the development of Bahria Town reveal about the rationalities and priorities of urban

planning in Pakistan? I note that when the lens of practices in cities of the Global North is

used to address urban issues in Pakistan, there is ignorance of the everyday realities and

politics concerning ordinary people’s lives in the country. Hence, I hope to understand the

implications of such practices. Current discourse on Bahria Town is focused on the

evictions of village residents and protests the violence perpetrated by the developers. With

my report, I hope to add a layer to the discussion of explicit exclusionary practices by

showcasing the implicit exclusionary practices in Bahria Town’s design and promotions.

My research project involves a combination of literature review and content

analysis. To understand the rationalities behind Bahria Town’s planning and design, I

looked at the supply side of its branding and promotion using social media and the

development’s main website. For social media, I chose to analyze Bahria Town’s official

Twitter handle. Since the Facebook and Instagram posts were the same compared to the

5

Twitter and Instagram posts, I decided to stick to Twitter. I mainly used Twitter to conduct

a quantitative assessment of themes that are prevalent in Bahria Town’s branding using

methodology inspired from Osborne’s (2016) work. I collected all Twitter posts between

5th June, 2021 and 5th February, 2021 which were a total of 133 posts. I excluded posts

that were (1) announcements related to logistics such as change in prayer timings, (2)

wishes for holidays such as those on Eid, Ramadan, women’s day etc. and (3) Quranic

sayings or Islamic lectures that were posted on some Fridays. The filtration brought down

the total number of posts to 97 and I assigned each post a unique code. I inserted these

unique codes into an excel sheet which allowed me to identify recurring themes (given

below in the left column of table 1). I then conducted a word search of each post and tick-

marked themes when they were explicitly mentioned. I did not look for any implicit

meanings in the posts unless there were words which I thought were synonymous to one

of the nine themes. These synonyms are mentioned with the relevant theme in the right

column of table 1.

6

Theme Synonym (s)

Exclusive unique, distinctive

Modern future, state-of-the-art, latest, advanced

World-class international

Best top, ideal

Privilege -

Nature green

Luxury -

Beauty exquisite

Dream -

Elite -

Eco-Friendly -

Fast rapid

Table 1: Themes and their synonyms explored for a quantitative analysis of Bahria’s Twitter

posts

For each theme, I found the percentage of times it occurred in the Twitter posts and

identified those that occurred frequently, that is, above 10%. I then turned to deconstructing

the different themes through a qualitative analysis. While my quantitative analysis

identified the themes the developers used to brand Bahria Town, the qualitative analysis

served to deconstruct the different brand themes to understand how they were used in

design and promotion, what they represented, and what implications they could bring. As

I started my qualitative analysis, I realized some of these themes overlapped. For example,

beauty and nature were used together. Hence, in my final findings I grouped the

overlapping themes and ended up with four categories, which I will discuss later in chapter

3. To explain how each category played out in the promotion and design of Bahria Town,

I analyzed content from the development’s official website. Using secondary literature, I

7

deconstructed each category to explain the rationality and implications of the branding,

design and planning of Bahria Town.

However, my research has its limitations. For the quantitative analysis, I coded and

searched the posts manually. While I double-checked the posts, human error should be

considered a possibility while reading the results. The sample size was also limited due to

time constraints and the data could be improved with a larger sample of posts. The

methodology also limits the scope of this paper since only social media and website

promotions are used for my analysis. The analysis could be concretized with interviews of

developers and government officials to better understand the rationalities that went behind

planning Bahria Town. However, COVID-19 protocols and the accompanying travel

restrictions made it impossible to conduct interviews in person in Pakistan. Arranging

online interviews over long distance was difficult due to the time zone difference, lack of

contact information available as well as low response rate over emails (judging from past

research experiences). In addition to the supply-side of promotions, research on how

promotions and messages of Bahria Town are received by the public could also add another

perspective to the analysis. While time constraints limited the scope of this report, I hope

this paper lays the foundation for future research that explores the receiving end of planning

practices highlighted here.

The main findings of my analysis are discussed in the last chapter while the two

chapter before set the context. Chapter one gives a brief background to planning history in

Pakistan, showing the growing role of the private sector in housing and the legal and

institutional challenges that the country faces. It is followed by a discussion of the

8

institutional fragmentation of the three main cities in which Bahria Town is located. This

background is important for understanding the context in which Bahria Town emerged and

why it was able to circumvent laws and institutions. The chapter then moves onto

explaining the background of Bahria Town, how the concept originated, and the political

and legal controversies that surround it.

Chapter two lays out the theoretical framework to understand why and how

developments such as Bahria Town emerge and persist in cities of the Global South. It

gives an insight into the rationalities that go into the planning practices of such

developments, how these practices are rooted in the West and what their implications are

for urban development in the Global South.

Chapter three details the analysis of themes associated with the promotion and

design of Bahria Town. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, it shows how

modernity, internationalism, exclusivity and greenery are the main themes driving the

rationalities that are brought to bear in the planning of Bahria Town. It shows how these

themes feed into planning ideologies derived from the Global North and are centered

around aesthetics and design. Finally, the conclusion sums up the arguments made in this

report about the rationalities behind the planning of Bahria Town and their implications for

planning practices in Pakistan. It is followed by an exploration of broader lessons for

planning in Pakistan.

9

CHAPTER ONE: CASE BACKGROUND

Planning in Pakistan

Much like many countries in the Global South, Pakistan is expected to become

predominantly urban by 2025 (Hussnain et al., 2020). While the government has made

several attempts to cope with this rapid growth, plan implementation remains weak largely

due to insufficient financial backing, lack of ownership by stakeholders, weak data records,

faulty forecasts and lack of evaluation and monitoring, (ibid). More than anything, with

growing uncertainty and unplanned growth in urban areas, plans are detached form

complex ground realities and have to be abandoned (ibid).

There is no comprehensive town and country planning law in Pakistan at the

national level with fragmented legislations at different levels (Hussnain et al., 2020). After

the devolution of power to provinces, the individual provinces were unable to draft their

own provincial town and country planning laws (ibid). The Planning Commission

functions at the federal level and develops five-year plans. It oversees the implementation

of these plans while the provincial and local governments are responsible for their

execution (Qadeer, 1996). The federal government also hold the prime responsibility of

channeling foreign aid, providing finances for development and distributing power to

provincial and local authorities (Malik et al., 2019). One major issue identified in planning

is that the provincial and local governments implement planning and development mostly

through direct spending and without any thorough regional and local development plans

(Qadeer, 1996).

10

With increasing growth, housing shortages remain one of the greatest challenges

for the government. At the time of independence in 1947, the government responded to an

influx of refugees with a core housing scheme program that provided low-income

populations with one to two bedrooms in a unit (Qadeer, 1996). This era also saw suburban

expansion in major cities to house the middle and upper-class migrants (ibid). In 1971, the

government’s main support came from informal settlements and hence slum regularization,

upgradation and sites and services schemes were at the center of the urban development

strategy (ibid). However, with major suburban land development, Pakistani cities saw a

continued rise in spatial segregation along class lines. The years 1970-1977 saw the rise of

international influence on urban policies as UN agencies started funding urban

development projects and international prescriptions becoming an important component of

Pakistan’s urban policy agenda (ibid). This period also saw a boom in the private housing

development and land speculation. This was when the ‘informal’ land development

industry also emerged where private dealers worked with public officials to produce so-

called unorganized and illicit subdivisions (ibid). The 1980s saw a lot of reliance on the

private sector for housing, a lot of which international agencies such as World Bank and

International Monetary Fund spurred (ibid).

With the receding role of the public sector in public housing, the private sector

continues to play an increased role in housing supply mainly catering to the upper and

middle classes. With international agencies dictating the urban agenda, the private market

continues to grow powerful, relying on international prescriptions and models that are

11

detached from the day-to-day realities of ordinary citizens in Pakistan. At the same time,

in the absence of low-cost housing finance and an almost non-existent mortgage industry,

low-income residents are unable to access housing that the private sector provides.

Moreover, the increased speculation in the housing market has further worsened the issue

of housing shortages. As a result, the poor find themselves pushed to the informal

settlements at the periphery. The recently inducted government launched the Naya Pakistan

Housing Program, a public housing program which promised to deliver five million

housing units (Khalil et al., 2019). However, the yearly targets have not been met and

progress has been extremely slow (ibid).

Much of the urban housing in Pakistan is built without enforcement of regulations

or building permits (Qadeer, 1996). This ‘informal’ land development does not only

include informal settlements but massive private housing schemes that house the upper and

middle-income groups. As a result, land contestation constitutes a major issue in planning

with land disputes constituting 60 to 80 percent of court caseloads in Pakistan (World Bank,

2012). This heavy caseload along with poor documentation of land records leads to

prolonged legal arbitration and hence, policies that require determination of land ownership

are likely to be delayed (ibid). There is weak implementation of laws where legality of land

use is judged regressively, and illegal mega projects are granted amnesty after significant

work is done (Chugtai, 2019). However, the regressive land policies benefit those who are

able to pay off hefty fines, while those who are unable to do so find it difficult to access

and hold onto land for shelter and work.

12

Another problem concerning land management is that laws are obsolete. The

current law in Pakistan for acquiring land for development is the Land Acquisition Act

from the colonial rule in 1894 (Rizvi, 2018). According to the law, the state can use eminent

domain to develop land for ‘public purpose’ in return for fair compensation (ibid).

However, the law does not cover resettlement of non-title holders of land as they are not

recognized as beneficiaries of compensation (ibid). Moreover, there is no consideration for

those who have livelihoods tied to the land rather than housing (ibid). In the case of

Pakistan, the majority live in informal settlements and due to lack of title ownership run

the risk of displacement under this law (ibid). The Resettlement Ordinance 2001 and the

National Resettlement Policy 2002 were passed to fill the gaps in the Land Acquisition

Act, but these ordinances and policies were never implemented (ibid). Moreover, there are

no standards defined for compensation following land acquisition, which gives developers

unlimited power to decide the fate of those affected without being legally bound to consult

the communities. As discussed later, the collusion of the Bahria Town, Karachi with the

Sindh government to bypass the Colonization of Government Lands Act 1912 and the

resultant displacement illustrates how there are no binding laws or policies available for

those who are affected by land development. The next section details institutional

weaknesses and loopholes in the three main cities of Pakistan that allow circumvention of

law.

13

Background of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad

Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan and is located in the province of Sindh. With

a population of 20 million, it constitutes a quarter of Pakistan’s total urban population.

Lahore houses 11.5 million people and is the second largest city in Pakistan, situated in the

Province of Punjab. Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, houses 1 million people and is also

found in the province of Punjab.

Across these three cities, one major obstacle to effective planning is institutional

arrangements where different agencies do not have clearly defined powers and control.

Karachi comprises of various agencies at federal, provincial and local levels, each of which

has their own spatial units (ADB, 2005). With separate legal and administrative

frameworks, each agency often follows its own set of regulations and is responsible for

multiple services within its own jurisdiction (ibid). However, the agencies engage in only

limited institutional coordination (ibid). Additionally, there is no effective coordination

between landholding and controlling agencies, which means that regulatory systems are

ineffective for land development by private developers (ibid). Moreover, there is weak

enforcement law and policies when it comes to distribution and development of land,

building permits and of construction provisions for leasing public land (ibid).

While there is lack of institutional coordination in Karachi, institutions in Lahore

responsible for spatial planning and policies overlap without clear areas of control, which

has resulted in Lahore’s spatial fragmentation (Nasir et al., 2019). Institutions such as the

Lahore Improvement Trust, Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency, Cantonment

14

Boards, Lahore Development Authority and Defence Housing mainly provide housing and

related services (ibid). Therefore, rather than being a cross-sectoral field under various

institutions, planning in Lahore mainly comes under institutions that provide housing

(ibid).

Islamabad’s planning challenges stem from the lack of coordination between its

institutions and those that administer its twin city, Rawalpindi (Iqbal 2006). The Master

Plan for Islamabad was prepared to integrate it with the city of Rawalpindi under one large

metropolitan area (ibid). These two cities were considered highly dependent on each other

in terms of overall urban development, but different planning and institutional

arrangements were created to develop urban areas in each of the two cities (ibid). No legal

framework has been established to facilitate coordination between the two different

authorities that administer the twin cities. While the two cities are physically integrated,

their institutional disintegration makes it impossible for planners and policymakers to keep

up with the demands stemming from rapid urban development (ibid).

Ultimately, this institutional disaggregation makes it difficult to executive

comprehensive plans or regulate land use and management. When agencies overlap or do

not coordinate, what is termed acceptable and legal by one agency can differ for another.

The institutional fragmentation has thus left loopholes that private developers have been

able to leverage to build massive illegal schemes.

15

History and Background of Bahria Town

Bahria Town, which claims to be the largest private real-estate development in

Asia, was founded in 1996 at the confluence of the twin cities Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

The land on which Bahria Town, Islamabad currently stands was once owned by the

residents of a village called Dhok Baran (Khan et al., 2014). They used the land for rain-

fed agriculture and were led to believe by Bahria’s developers that they would benefit from

selling their low-value and unproductive land (ibid). In early 2002, when the residents

received eviction notices and threats, they mobilized against the Bahria Group (ibid).

Public rallies and protests took place over a three-month period to draw attention

to the unfair land grabbing practices (Khan et al, 2014). As a result, the Bahria Town

management deployed more brutal and violent methods to grab the land. Initially the

residents had received notices from the tehsildars (local government revenue officials) that

the Bahria Group were offering to purchase their land. Some were satisfied with the quoted

price and agreed to sell their lands, while the majority did not wish to do so (ibid). When

the notices turned into threats of evictions, the residents mobilized to resist. These residents

were then visited by military personnel who tried to warn the residents of the extent of their

power (ibid).

In addition to threats, there were also offers where the landowners were

incentivized to sell their land with the promise that they would be granted land in the new

housing scheme (Khan et al, 2014). However, distrustful that such promises would be met,

the villagers refused to sell their land and continued their protests. This was followed by

16

armed men attacking residents who were believed to be leading the protests, resulting in

some being wounded and hospitalized (ibid). When the residents lodged a first information

report (FIR) with the police, they were promised justice. However, in a matter of 24 hours,

the police were bribed into colluding with the Bahria Group and lodged an FIR against

some villagers for attacking their neighbors, making the whole incident look like a dispute

between the villagers (ibid). The residents eventually gave up and agreed to sell off their

land at whatever price was being offered even though some of those were below the market

rate (ibid). Those who held onto their lands were eventually disenfranchised as the

tehsildars falsified purchase and sale agreements (ibid). After the completion of Bahria

Town, the record of the village and the means to acquire the land were erased (ibid).

Bahria Town soon expanded to other cities such as Lahore and Karachi. While there

is no known controversy behind the establishment of this development in Lahore, the

development of Bahria Town Karachi involved violent land grabbing measures similar to

the ones in Islamabad. Bahria Town began its development in Karachi in 2014 and soon

became controversial for illegal land acquisition. In 2018, the court decided that Bahria

Town had illegally procured land and ordered a halt to the construction (Shackle, 2019).

The Sindh Board of Revenue had granted the land on which Bahria Town now stands to a

housing developer known as the Malir Development Authority (MDA). Under the

Colonization of Government Lands Act (1912), the granted land was in tenancy only with

the rationale that leasing would give the MDA a constant source of revenue without the

government losing title of the land (Chugtai, 2019). The land was scattered over 9 divisions

and was granted for the development of low-cost housing with plot sizes capped at 120

17

yards (Zaman et al, 2019). As per the terms of agreement, the granted land was to be

allocated at market price except the parts used for the low-cost housing scheme, in which

case the discounted rate was to be at minimum 25% of the market rate (ibid). The MDA

Act 1993 also specified similar rates for low-cost housing and stated that the plots of lands

would be made available through balloting3 (ibid).

Going against the terms of agreement with the Sindh government, the MDA applied

the principle of consolidation to exchange land with Bahria Town. Consolidation is a legal

method for Sindh Board of Revenue, whereby a farmer would be offered a larger

consolidated piece of land in a nearby area in exchange for his scattered pieces of

agricultural land (Zaman et al, 2019). As per the Colonization of Government Lands Act

of 1912, the consolidated land should not exceed 16 acres and according to section 17 of

the Act, “the land so taken in exchange shall … be deemed to be held on the same

conditions and subject to the same obligations as the surrendered land was held” (Zaman

et al, 2019). In 2013, the Act was amended, empowering the MDA to consolidate land (a

power earlier only granted to the Sindh Board of Revenue) by “adjustment of plots in a

scheme by way of exchange or otherwise for the purpose of the scheme” (Zaman et al,

2019). However, MDA joined vast amounts of privately owned land and consolidated it

for a profit generating commercial development (ibid). The MDA then twisted the

framework of consolidation of land to justify its acts. Agricultural lands were also

3 Due to high demand, the allocation of plots are granted to those applicants whose names are drawn from a

lot of all applicants

18

exchanged for commercial and residential development and other nonagricultural purposes

which violated the basis of the Colonization Act (ibid).

While the MDA broke the agreement under which the government granted the land

to the authority, the MDA had regulations in places under which it exchanged the land with

Bahria Town. It had legal provisions that expected the Bahria developer to work with the

MDA and launch a low-cost housing scheme. However, the Bahria Group was to have

limited autonomy or incentives to launch any large-scale commercial venture (Chugtai,

2019). Regardless, the developer initiated a housing scheme and began construction even

before buying lands from the MDA (ibid). Eventually the MDA gave away the land to the

developer who then began developing commercial plots using the label of ‘public purpose’

(Chugtai, 2019). As Chugtai (2019) argues, this is a matter of fait accompli where the event

or process happens before the affected populations receive any information, leaving them

with no options but to accept it.

The affected include the residents of the village of Usman Allah Raki Goth, who

had been residing in close proximity to what would become Bahria Town (ibid). The

developers had approached the villagers in 2014 and reached an agreement, whereby the

villagers would sell some of their land used for their livestock in return for monetary

compensation and promises of connections to Bahria Town’s electricity, gas and water

supply (ibid). However, after two years of construction only partial compensation was paid

to the villagers and no utility connections were provided. Against the will of the village

residents, Bahria Town expanded through violent means, tearing down their mosques,

graveyards and homes to build its amenities, houses and roads. The continued expansion

19

has affected 48 villages, with most of the loss impacting agriculture and pasture lands,

which were the main sources of livelihoods for the villagers (Shackle, 2019).

While the court ordered a halt in construction in 2018, it accepted that the company

would pay 460 billion rupees (USD 2.9 billion) for 16,896 acres of land in the district

(Baloch, 2021). However, it provided no clear demarcation of the acreage for development

of Bahria Town, in effect allowing the developer to violently tear down villages in the

process without any consequences (Ashfaq et al, 2020).

20

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

FRAMEWORK

Soon after his election, Prime Minister Imran Khan began running massive anti-

encroachment drives. Such drives wiped out many informal settlements and employment

activities, further worsening the problem of lack of housing and employment opportunities

in Pakistan. However, these drives were very selective in the sense that they targeted

informal activities of the poor while overlooking the informal activities of the rich. Many

towns, neighborhoods and gated communities were built through illegal land grabbing

activities, fake documentation, or violation of zoning laws. Such was the case of Bahria

Town, where the developers had illegally grabbed land from another developing authority

and local populations. In the case of Karachi, the developers were taken to court but they

were granted amnesty in return for a hefty fine. However, the court’s decision did not

address the evictions of the residents who had their lands taken away from them.

The amnesty granted to Bahria Town raises a major planning concern. This

regressive approach to law shows how the legal framework is an afterthought in planning

and also favors the upper class. The court decided that “since a great deal of work has been

done by the Bahria Town and a third-party interest has been created in favor of hundreds

of allotees, the land could be granted to the Bahria Town afresh” (Chugtai, 2019) with

revised conditions and terms (ibid). The fact that this kind of informal activity was

retroactively deemed legal because of the ability of the developers to pay off the fine and

the creation of “interest of many allotees” (ibid) shows that certain interests are privileged

over others in planning. Similar concerns were not addressed when the interests involved

21

were those of slum dwellers or informal street workers. In the case of Bahria Town, the

interests of the local populations who had been living there for the past 60 years were not

considered when the Bahria Group evicted them in favor of expansion. Promoted as a

world-class, modern and international community, Bahria Town sets a legal precedent that

planning is dictated by aesthetic ordering that favor the elite at the expense of low-income

populations.

Such planning approaches and ideas must be understood within the global rise of

neoliberalism, which uses megacities as centers for its own reproduction and reconstitution

(Mehta, 2016). Neoliberalism glorifies structuring spaces such that global market forces,

private capital and middle-class interests are prioritized over state welfare programs that

serve the low-income populations (Mehta, 2016; Bayat & Biekart, 2009; Dupont, 2011).

The middle class considers economic liberalization as a benefit because of the promises of

public order, efficiency and global lifestyles (Mehta, 2016; Dupont, 2011). The need for

the city to improve its image and become globally competitive is problematic when poverty

level is high and resources limited; it results in the negligence of other more critical issues

that impact the urban majority (Lemanski, 2007). The middle-class holds desires of

escaping the rest of the city to build ordered communities for themselves, undermining the

rights of marginalized groups (Mehta, 2016). Spaces such as informal settlements or low-

income settlements then become associated with either illegality or deficiencies (Watson,

2009, Baviskar, 2003, Mehta, 2016). The residents of such spaces are then co-opted into

the visually pleasing developments based on world-class aesthetics (Mehta 2016; Roy,

2006). They are prompted to believe that they too would be the beneficiaries of any

22

improvements made to the area (Mehta, 2016). Hence, spaces that are eye-sores to the

middle class then become key targets for transformations in ways that only benefit their

group. As Roy argues, such depoliticization of space “is the frontier of colonial planning,

where the colonies were seen as ‘experimental terrains’, sites where political, social, and

aesthetic experiments could be conducted with few consequences” (Roy, 2006). We see

this in the case of Bahria Town too when the farmers whose lands were taken for the

development of the town were initially made to believe that they would benefit from the

utility supplies of the master planned community, but the development and its promises

did not unfold as promised.

These planning systems have worsened the problems of the Global South because

they are either inherited from their past colonizers or have been modelled on cities of the

Global North to meet certain ideological ends that favor the planning vision of the political

elite (Watson, 2009). However, these planning systems have remained unchanged despite

significant change in the context in which they operate (ibid). When planning systems

follow models from other cities, they assume that all cities follow the trajectory of New

York and London. For example, In New York, Chicago and other cities of the U.S. rapid

industrialization brought about rapid growth that posed urban challenges. Various planning

reforms focused on the deconcentration of cities out of fear of the ‘dangerous’, ‘diseased’

classes mixing with the rich. One of these planning responses was the development of

suburbs where the rich moved to escape problems of cities and the discomfort of the mixed

income and mixed-use central areas of the city (Fishman, 2003). Large areas of land at the

edge of the city were sold for private development in the name of economic growth and

23

these suburbs were associated with privacy, exclusivity, security and a greener lifestyle.

But the proposed solutions never addressed the needs of the poor and were targeted towards

the wants of the elite who wanted to socially control the poor. There was hesitance towards

government reliance, state intervention and public housing. Thus, private housing appeared

to offer better residential options to well-paid workers creating an illusion of progress

(Foglesong, 1986). In light of such circumstances, the City Beautiful movement gained a

lot of traction as it was promoted as a semi-utopia free from poverty and crime. Its founders

believed that improvement of physical design was capable of solving urban issues without

addressing the social and economic aspects. Supporters of the City Beautiful movement

believed that improved sanitation, public spaces, parks, civic art, civic centers and better

traffic circulation would make cities of the U.S. more harmonious (Farfield, 2018). Similar

strategies focused on opening new towns such as Garden Cities or company towns that

were located away from the dense parts of cities and banked on the advantages of urban

and rural life. Here everybody lived “in conditions that would allow them to be content

with their place in the capitalist system” (Novac, 2014). They came with the belief that

beautiful surroundings had educational refining influences (ibid).

Other planners in the US such as Bartholomew relied on rational planning models

to build an efficient city based on slum clearances for the revitalization of the urban core.

Bartholomew’s goal “was to build a healthy and civil city, peopled by literate and educated

nuclear families living in stately detached townhouses displayed along wide, paved, and

efficiently organized streets” (Heathcott, 2005) and where the law-abiding middle- class

lived (Heathcott, 2005). Such planners treated the urban environment as a disorganized

24

complexity, “reducing problems to statistical analysis assuming that the system as a whole

possessed certain orderly and analyzable average properties” (Jacobs, 1992).

A lot of cities in the global South face issues such as congestion, overcrowding and

inadequate housing. Planning traditions that were used in the US and Europe in the 19th

century to bring order to cities are now being replicated in Southern cities. However, the

response to conditions in the US and Europe were very specific to those earlier times and

context (Watson, 2009). Bahria Town is one example, a town that echoes elements of

Garden Cities and ‘City Beautiful’ due to its location away from the city and the offer of

more green spaces. Much like the concept of City Beautiful, its efficiently organized

streets, houses laid out in neat rows, public spaces and amenities cover up the violence,

such as evictions of low-income populations, and the ecological and environmental

challenges that come with its erroneous building and expansion.

Labelled as a city within a city, Bahria Town is an exaggerated version of suburbia

from 20th century, that is detached from the local context (Datta, 2017). The making of

new cities at an unprecedented speed is a recent phenomenon in the Global South that

draws on the rhetoric of a ‘crisis of urbanization’ (Chakrabarty, 2000; Datta, 2017). These

new cities incorporate features of modernity and global lifestyles with speed being the

persistent feature (Datta, 2017). New cities are legitimized as solutions to the issues of

urbanization and rely on commoditization of land, “transforming ‘unproductive’ land into

‘valuable real estate’...” (Datta, 2017). But eventually, the process of new city making

grapples with ground realities such as acquiring land, abiding by laws and managing local

resistance. As a response, the process attempts to circumvent such realities through

25

formation of alliances and negotiations that give form to new ways of governing the city

(Koch, 2015, Datta, 2017). This transfers governance and planning to the private sector,

which serves the interests of the upper and middle classes (Datta, 2017). This new urban

colonialism uses rhetoric and the power of imagery to promote its interests and build mass

aspirations around such new ‘futuristic’ developments (ibid). In the case of Bahria Town,

we will explore how the developers form coalitions to bypass laws in order to expand

Bahria Town. They also use rhetoric of international recognition, modernity and efficiency

in their representation and design of the development to legitimize its existence and

expansion.

Drawing on Ghertner (2011), I suggest the proponents of Bahria Town use

aesthetics and design as a planning solution to Pakistan’s urban issues. This aesthetic

ordering of a city is based on promotion of aesthetic norms at the cost of legality and

accurate assessments of land use status and property rights (Ghertner, 2011). As an

example, Ghertner (2011) points out that a shopping mall can potentially “look legal” even

if it is in violation of planning law. On the other hand, residents of a slum even if they have

been formalized would look illegal because informal settlements do not conform to these

dominant aesthetic values. This approach to land development that favors aesthetic values

allows governments to overcome bureaucratic difficulties and translate messy realities such

as land use designations, population densities, territorialities, and settlement history into

what Ghertner refers to as numerical and cartographic legibility. Government thus achieves

legibility “not by (statistically) simplifying territory into easily intelligible representations,

but rather the reverse: it takes an idealized vision of the world-class city gleaned from

26

refracted images and circulating models of other world-class cities (a little Singapore here,

a little London there) and asks if existing territorial arrangements conform to this vision”

(Ghertner, 2011). Later we will explore how Bahria Town uses inspiration from cities such

as New York, London and Paris for its aesthetic ordering.

The language used in the discourse to refer to the same geographical location also

reflects the aesthetic premises of contemporary planning in Pakistan. Shatkin (2007) notes

that a community of upper income families located at the edge of the city would be referred

to as a “suburb,” which carries a positive connotation, whereas a community of low-income

families in the same location would be designated less charitably as a “periphery.”

Similarly, the term “slum” justifies assumptions of encroachments and informal planning,

whereas “property developments” with world-class looks are granted amnesty despite

violations of zoning and building laws. Developments such as Bahria Town became

controversial under the prime minister’s anti-encroachment drive which also wiped out a

lot of informal settlements and employment opportunities. However, because the

developers of Bahria Town could buy their way out of these accusations, the court deemed

the development legal in return for a fee. Such a form of informality is not more legal than

squatter settlements or informal livelihoods. But it is a representation of “class power that

can command infrastructure, services and legitimacy in a way that differentiates them from

the informal activities of the poor” (Roy, 2009).

27

CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS

The speed at which Bahria Town developed is unprecedented in Pakistan. The

development’s website says “(The idea that) Rome wasn’t built in a day can only be

believed by someone who hasn’t witnessed the development speed of Bahria Town Karachi

project” (Bahria Town, n.d.).4 The rhetoric of grandeur and internationalism that the

developers use is an erasure of the means through which this massive development grew.

Chapter two highlighted the violence that Bahria’s management used to claim the land for

this development. This chapter will explain how the developers use visual and

representational power to promote Bahria Town as a world-class utopia. The aspirations

that such promotions build further encourage such developments and unfold new planning

practices that divert investment and funding from the solutions that could potentially cater

to the urban majority.

The fast-paced development of Bahria Town is very different from conventional

city planning which involves patience and incremental modifications over long timelines

(Murray, 2017). “Cities grow, expand, and develop, or, conversely, stagnate, contract, and

decline, in incremental steps and over lengthy intervals” (Murray, 2017). Impulsive top-

down planning and transformation stands in contrast with the “necessary prudence which

characterizes a more incremental, bottom-up approach to the pressing problems of

everyday life” (Murray, 2017) which is seldom found in cities such as those of Pakistan.

The idea of fast and instant building of cities also resonates with ideas of 20th century U.S.

4 This description is for Bahria Town Karachi. See full description at: https://bahriatown.com/karachi/

28

when Garden Cities and the City Beautiful Movement became popular. In such

movements, planners detached themselves from the problems that existing cities faced and

took on the task of building towns and settlements from scratch. Rather than keeping up

with the organic growth of cities and dealing with issues incrementally, Bahria’s

developers adopted the practice of building a ‘city’ from scratch that offers no solutions to

the problems that the urban majority face. Its high property values, modern architectural

designs, and world-class amenities line up with the aspirations of the upper and middle

classes. It claims to be a dream that challenges the realities of Pakistan even though those

realities mostly affect the low-income communities who cannot afford or access what

Bahria Town offers. With its constant references to cities of the Global North and ‘global’

cities of the Global South such as Singapore and Dubai, Bahria Town claims to offer

everything that Pakistan is not. The juxtaposition between Bahria Town and the rest of

Pakistan shows the tension that exists between the fantasies of starting afresh and the

failure of the government to implement practical solutions to include ordinary citizens into

the everyday urban life (Murray, 2017). It is important to problematize such utopias since

they are detached from realities of cities in Pakistan and do not offer an inclusive solution.

Using content from Bahria Town’s Twitter handle and official website, I analyze a

series of repeated themes to illustrate the language used in the promotion of Bahria Town.

These promotions give insights into the rationalities that have shaped the planning and

development of Bahria Town. The methodology section earlier explained the approach I

took for my content analysis and this section will detail the results. Between 5th February,

2021 and 5th June 2021, there were a total of 97 posts excluding announcements related to

29

logistics, public holiday wishes and Quranic sayings. Out of these, the highest recurring

theme was ‘modernity’ with 26% of the posts talking about Bahria Town being a modern

or futuristic community. This was not surprising considering that Bahria Town’s focus is

around building something futuristic, using the latest technology to show how it is way

ahead of its time. Its vision statement on the website says, “build the future by integrating

fresh ideas, impeccable skills, and latest technology to shape a new timeless perspective

on life” (Bahria Town, n.d.).5 The second most recurring theme was related to

‘internationalism,’ with 23% posts promoting the community as global and its amenities

and design as world-class. Idealizing foreign lifestyles, Bahria Town aspires to give its

communities a global experience and shows how they are helping Pakistan ‘catch up’ with

the rest of the world. This global experience offers an escape from Pakistan to another more

‘developed’ world. The development was marketed as ‘the best’ in 22% of its posts,

underscoring how its promoters want to show it is ahead of the rest of Pakistan. About 21%

of the posts talked about the ‘luxurious lifestyle’ offered at Bahria Town. Considering that

the development houses the upper and middle classes, the branding of luxury could be

considered as a way to show the grandeur and exclusivity of the community and how a

only a few can access and afford it. The word ‘exclusivity’ was also specifically used in

15% of the posts. ‘Nature’ and ‘greenery’ also featured in about 14% of the posts,

something which did not occur to me at the beginning of my research. The greenery, open

spaces and lack of density in Bahria Town comes across as a factor that distinguishes it

5 View full vision statement at https://bahriatown.com/about/

30

from the congestion, density and lack of greenery that characterize large cities in Pakistan.

‘Beauty’ was also a constant reference and mentioned in about 20% of the posts. This was

often bundled with greenery and international architecture with emphasis on ‘beautiful

views.’

For my qualitative analysis I will deconstruct four of these themes including

internationalism, modernity, exclusivity and nature and greenery. While Bahria Town also

frequently marketed itself as the best, luxurious and beautiful, I have subsumed these

themes under the previously four identified categories because of their overlap. The

marketing of Bahria Town as ‘the best’ was often done to distinguish it from the rest of

Pakistan and hence this theme is covered under exclusivity. Beauty often was bundled with

world-class aesthetics and greenery and hence is covered under these two themes. Luxury

also overlapped with exclusivity, internationalism and modernity and is covered under

those categories. In deconstructing these themes, I use content from the website and any

text in quotations is from the website unless stated otherwise.

Internationalism

The need to be world-class and international should be understood within the

context of a neo-liberal agenda which prioritizes global market forces and private capital

over state welfare programs (Mehta, 2016). To attract foreign investment, this agenda aims

to transform cities to conform with world-class aesthetics. However, neoliberalism gives

power to the private sector, which prioritizes planning for the political elite over common

citizens. Without a strong civic authority to oversee development, private developers

31

assume the power to decide what kind of urbanity prevails (Murray, 2017). In Pakistan the

absence of a strong civic authority and the collusion of the government with the private

sector means that the urbanity that is allowed to prevail is favorable to the political elite.

Bahria Town claims to provide the best for its citizens by imitating design aesthetics

and building typologies that have been successful elsewhere. To bring life to such designs,

it partnered with design specialists from around the world and built facilities that take

inspiration from other cities. The website features these international design organizations

prominently, including GMP Germany which built the Rafi Cricket Stadium (Figure 1),

the creators of Singapore Sentosa and Dubai Canal Water who built the Bahria Dancing

Fountains (Figure 2,) and well-known manufacturers from Italy that built an adventure land

(Figure 3). It then markets its designs and amenities to be in line with “international

standards.” With this it implies that anything that is international is good. This idealization

of the ‘global’, as Watson (2008) argues, is problematic because it assumes that cities of

the Global South are behind other cities and need to catch up. Bahria Town uses this

narrative to legitimize itself by portraying the development to be advanced and on par with

other cities. For example, it markets the Rafi Cricket Stadium to be on “par with the finest

stadiums around the world” (Bahria Town, n.d.)6 and shows that Bahria Town is on “par

with international trends” with its “modern and advanced” dancing fountains that are “the

largest choregraphed fountains in South Asia” (Bahria Town, n.d.)7. The attempt to make

Pakistan advanced through designs and aesthetics copied from other contexts is a

6 More details available at: https://bahriatown.com/rafi-cricket-stadium-karachi/ 7 More details available at: https://bahriatown.com/bahria-dancing-fountains/

32

detachment from the local context; these solutions focus on the aspirations and fantasies of

the political elite, diverting resources from the urban majority which can only focus on

everyday survival without proper shelter and basic services.

Figure 1: Rafi Cricket Stadium in Bahria Town, Karachi

Source: https://bahriatown.com/rafi-cricket-stadium-karachi/

33

Figure 2: Dancing fountains in Bahria Town Karachi

Source: https://bahriatown.com/bahria-dancing-fountains/

Figure 3: Bahria Adventure Land in Karachi

Source: https://bahriatown.com/bahria-adventure-land-karachi/

Beyond international design elements, Bahria Town seeks to provide a global

experience through replicas of world-renowned monuments. The replicas of the Eiffel

34

Tower (figure 4), Statue of Liberty (figure 5) and Trafalgar Square (figure 6) symbolize

the power of global capitalism. Such monuments have the power to form identities of

surrounding communities (Stuart Hall, 1997) and to reinforce that the communities must

constantly aspire towards European and American lifestyles (Chattopadhyay, 2005).

Figure 4: Replica of the Eiffel Tower in Bahria Town, Lahore

Source: https://bahriatown.com/sector-e-f/

35

Figure 5: Replica of the Statue of Liberty in Bahria Town, Islamabad

Source: https://bahriatown.com/phase-8-phase-8-extension/

36

Figure 6: Replica of Trafalgar Square in Bahria Town, Islamabad & Rawalpindi

Source: https://bahriatown.com/safari-villas-2/

The international adaptations also signify luxury and royalty. The Ahram-e-Misr

(figure 7) is a neighborhood that leverages Egyptian architecture, culture and heritage. It is

marketed as a “a true reincarnation of the magnificent Egyptian civilization…an exotic

civilization… depicting majestic traditions,” (Bahria Town, n.d.)8 and one which offers a

“royal lifestyle” to those who “seek the sublime in luxury living.” These representations of

royalty and luxury could be interpreted as a reinforcement of elitism and the power and

dominance of the Bahria community.

8 See full description at https://bahriatown.com/ahram-e-misr/

37

Figure 7: Ahram-e-Misr in Bahria Town Lahore

Source: https://bahriatown.com/ahram-e-misr/

38

These international monuments and landmarks need to be understood as traces of

Pakistan’s colonial history. These traces are not only found in the idealization of Western

lifestyles but also serve to justify the erasure of original communities that once populated

the area. The replacement of villages with the so-called world-class development resonates

with the colonial governance structures which privileged the British colonizer’s lifestyle

and manners over those of the natives. Therefore, these erasures showcase the Pakistani

state’s priorities of world-class aesthetics over socio-economic needs of low-income

communities.

Modernity

The formation of a modern urban fabric in Pakistan relies on borrowing ideas,

importing materials, and betraying local cultural forms and economic realities. The

idealization of Western ideas, designs and lifestyles explored earlier also stem from the

need to be ‘modern’. The concept of modernity gives a sense of historical progression and

is rooted in Western urban theory where cities of the Global North are considered ahead in

time and anything different from them is considered less modern, ‘non-modern’, ‘rural’,

‘primitive’ and ‘backward’ (Robinson, 2013). Accounts of modernity inform progress by

drawing on rational techniques to understand events and the ordering of space and time

(ibid). These accounts are contrasted with other places or previous eras, that are shown to

have a mythical sense of time with prevalent traditions considered static and

counterintuitive to progress (ibid).

39

On its website, Bahria Town constantly reinforces its vision of a “modern

Pakistan,” hosting facilities such as “modern hospitals” and cinemas with “modern

contemporary design.” This modernity is also used interchangeably with notions of

efficiency, where the development offers “state-of-the-art infrastructure” and facilities that

use the “latest technology.” The Chief Executive says, “our goal is to bring Pakistan on the

list of developed countries” (Bahria Town, n.d.).9 Such use of language places Pakistan on

a vertical trajectory of progress where it is at competition with other cities, with the end

goal of being ‘developed’ and ‘modern.’ The lens of developmentalism here is problematic

because it categorizes urban processes into dualisms and ignores the complex interplay

between categories: how they overlap, how their boundaries change and how there are

experiences that do not fall in any of them. Such theorizations create hierarchies and

validate Western ‘best practices’ as universal solutions, giving ‘First World’ countries

power and control over ‘Third World’ countries (Escobar, 1996). This categorization and

rhetoric of developed versus underdeveloped is what Bahria Town also uses to assert its

own power. Through labels such as ‘advanced’ and ‘modern’ as a juxtaposition to the rest

of Pakistan, Bahria Town implies that the rest of the country is backward and traditional.

Rather than viewing the ‘developed’ as ahead of the ‘underdeveloped,’ it is crucial to view

underdevelopment in one region as a consequence of development in another region.

Hence, contrary to what the developers claim, the progress of Bahria Town does not mean

it is superior to other areas in Pakistan, rather that its development is feeding off the

9 View detailed message here: https://bahriatown.com/about/

40

investment that could have addressed basic survival needs of the urban majority (Akhter,

2015).

Beyond language, the imagery and designs that Bahria Town uses also reflect

‘modernity.’ Their residential section on the website features a man in a suit standing with

a cup of coffee in the balcony of high rise building with an aesthetic backdrop that contains

a high rise, Bahria’s famous Grand Jamia Masjid and lots of greenery (figure 8). Many

buildings featured on their website project a ‘futuristic’ look with white, glossy exteriors,

green surroundings and neatly laid out paths (figure 9, figure 10 & figure 11). Bahria

Paradise, a neighborhood in the development is marketed as “pure glass amongst soft

grass” (Bahria Town, n.d.).10 Such designs reinforce Bahria Town’s advanced position on

the vertical trajectory of progress representing “a leapfrog out of the past and into the

future” (Murray, 2017). The guiding vision for planning portrayed here is that Pakistan

needs to catch up with other developed planning ideologies. However, these ideologies suit

formally employed, relatively well off, car-owning urban elites who live lifestyles similar

to those in European and American countries (Waston, 2017). They overlook the way of

life of the urban majority who are unable to cope with the expectations and standards that

10 Learn more about Bahria Paradise at https://bahriatown.com/bahria-paradise/

41

accompany urban modernism and hence are further pushed out of places that reinforce such

ideologies, leading to marginalization and spatial segregation.

Figure 8: Bahria Heights in Karachi

Source: https://bahriatown.com/bahria-heights/

42

Figure 9: Opal 225 in Bahria Town Karachi featuring a white glossy building with a glass

exterior. Source: https://bahriatown.com/opal-225/

43

Figure 10: Central Park Apartments in Bahria Town Karachi featuring a white, glossy and glass

exterior. Source: https://bahriatown.com/central-park-apartments/

44

Figure 11: Bahria Sports City in Karachi with a glossy structure

Source: https://bahriatown.com/bahria-sports-city/

Exclusivity

When Bahria Town brands itself as a modern community, it creates a duality with

the rest of Pakistan. This duality of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ is also a trace of colonial practice of

ordering and serves to make sense of the city through economic and social segregation.

Bahria Town leverages such differences with the rest of Pakistan by branding its

communities as exclusive with boundary walls, high security and unique facilities. By

distinguishing itself from the rest of Pakistan (figure 12), it tries to establish superiority of

its planning practices that others should learn from (figure 13). Such exclusivity is

45

reinforced when it promotes the development as a fantasy that only a privileged few can

access. The Central Park apartments are promoted as “luxury high-rise apartments…the

finest version of New York that the rest of the world dreams about experiencing” (Bahria

Town, n.d.).11 These utopian narratives attempt to paint the image of the West as a perfect

dreamlike world which is free from any problems and which everybody should aspire

towards. Given Bahria’s history of evictions and Pakistan’s history with the British

colonizers, this promotional language serves to sanction the colonial and violent practices

that accompany the drive towards replicating Western urban forms. When it makes

promises of bringing amenities that were “unimaginable in Pakistan,” it reinforces the

elitism of the community and excludes the ordinary citizen with the idea that Bahria Town

is not something they can access but only dream of.

Figure 12: Newspaper articles featured on Bahria Town’s website that juxtapose Bahria's

developments against Pakistan's problems.

Source: https://bahriatown.com/about/

11 See full description at https://bahriatown.com/central-park-apartments/

46

Figure 13: Newspaper article featured on Bahria Town's website

that idealizes Bahria's practices as a model for the government

Source: https://bahriatown.com/about/

The promotion of Bahria Town as a fantasy along with its high property values,

high security and surveillance makes the community only accessible for a certain class.

Recently, Bahria Town Karachi introduced a low-cost housing scheme with 20 model

houses that would be available to low-income families. Out of the total 104,000 units sold

(Zaman et al, 2015), these 20 houses constitute a very small percentage (0.019%).

Moreover, the down payment of these houses start at $1,875, which a minimum wage

worker earning $87 per month cannot possibly afford despite multiple working adults in

the family. Therefore, while Bahria Town claims to “cater to all the different

socioeconomic classes of Pakistan” (Bahria Town, n.d.),12 the development has taken no

steps to ensure the inclusion of low-income groups in the development. In fact, the

construction of this development happened at the cost of evicting villages that housed low-

income communities.

12 View message from Chief Executive (CE) at https://bahriatown.com/about/

47

From its design to its promotions, Bahria Town has catered to the middle and upper

classes, ensuring homogeneity (figure 14). The constant reference to luxury also implies

that the gated community offers privileges that only a few can afford. Low (2001) argues

that homogeneity helps provide a sense of security and fuels desires to move into these

communities. Feelings that your neighbors act or look like you become crucial in providing

a sense of security for community residents. The resultant spatial segregation, however,

diverts resources from regions that are poor to regions that are rich, worsening the

conditions in which low-income communities live.

Figure 14: Twitter post promoting homogeneity by stating that Bahria Town residents share the

same ideologies.

Source: https://twitter.com/BahriaTownOffic/status/1399984155044290561

48

Nature and Greenery

Bahria Town markets greenery and the beauty of nature to distinguish itself from

the congestion of city. While it boasts to be an environmentally sustainable community

(figure 15), it simultaneously indulges in unsustainable practices that have resulted in

environmental and ecological degradation. Mckay et al. (2015) argue that the concept of

urban greening is often embedded within the context of global capitalism and manifests

itself as a commodity, a perspective which allows us to distinguish between greenwash

practices and actual environmental sustainability. Nas (2015) shows us how Istanbul’s

gated communities, greenness and naturalness were used to provide distinction from the

chaotic city center. He argues that green marketing effort is a strategy by which neoliberal

urbanism adjusts itself to the newly emerging consumer concerns regarding the decay of

the nature and provides alternative spaces of life that forge an anti-city position with

continuing ties to the requirements of urban.

In the case of Bahria Town, its green spaces have been deployed as a marketing

tactic that leverages the aesthetics of greenery in the name of beauty. For example, the

development’s parks provide “the necessary relief from day-to-day stress of modern life”

(Bahria Town, n.d).13 In Bahria Town each community is allotted a certain percentage of

land “to beautify the community.” The Twitter handle constantly makes associations

between greenery, nature and beauty, but the functional use of Bahria’s green spaces have

13See further description at https://bahriatown.com/park-zoos/

49

not been highlighted anywhere. This shows how nature is commoditized solely for the

purposes of aesthetics.

Figure 15: Twitter post that claims Bahria Town’s environment to be eco-friendly

Source: https://twitter.com/BahriaTownOffic/status/1385088262365138944

As opposed to the developer’s claims, Bahria Town does not indulge in ecofriendly

practices. The uncontrolled diversion of water to Bahria Town is depleting the already

inadequate water supply to Karachi. The developers have also depleted the limited sources

of water, that nearby villages use, by digging up wells and extracting underground water

50

(Zaman et, al, 2019). Nestle (a water bottling company) was denied the construction of a

water bottling plant in Bahria Town’s location. The judgement for Nestle, issued in 2004,

noted “once the process of extracting the water in such a huge quantity is allowed to

operate, each day, each hour, and each minute water deposits in the aquifer would diminish

rapidly and shall adversely affect the rights of plaintiffs to use the underground water

according to their genuine needs which shall amount to an irreparable loss to them” (ibid).

Despite this decision, Bahria Town is able to continue its unregulated and unsustainable

extraction of water.

Bahria Town is also altering the topography of the area by flattening many hills

even though the undulating landscape hosts many perennial streams that feed into the Malir

River (Zaman et al, 2019). Bahria Town’s plans seemingly involve changing the course of

these streams, which could adversely impact the environment and the area’s wildlife (ibid).

The focus on greenery in Bahria Town is therefore part of a beautification agenda which

not only contrasts the open green spaces against the dense, congested areas of Pakistan, but

also keeps attention away from the unsustainable and environmentally degrading practices

of the developers.

51

CONCLUSION

The continued expansion of Bahria Town shows a new form of urban governance

where the roles, activities and powers that once fell within the domain of public

administrators have now been shifted to the private sector. These private planners have

assumed power to establish regulations, manage infrastructure and land, and oversee the

provision of utilities such as electricity and water (Murray, 2017). When the Chief

Executive says “…no one can stop us from fulfilling our pure ambitions for The Land of

the Pure” (Bahria Town, n.d.)14, he asserts his unchallenged power to decide what forms

of urbanity prevail. These ‘pure’ communities are homogenized communities of the

political elite and middle classes who live in urban forms that symbolize global capitalism.

These rapidly growing urban forms with their world-class and green aesthetics, ‘modern’

infrastructure and exclusive practices are promoted as solutions to Pakistan’s problems.

They continue to be built due to (and further reinforce) aspirations of Western urban forms.

In doing so, planning practices are imported from the Northern cities to Southern cities

even if they are incompatible with the everyday, grounded realities of the latter. The

resulting disjuncture between urban life and everyday survival of ordinary citizens and the

desires of the political elite to start afresh with a ‘city’ built from scratch, produces the

utopian dreamscape of escapist urbanism (Datta, 2017). This fantasy argues that physical

design, technology, infrastructure, good governance, and enforceable rules (that favor the

14 View full message at https://bahriatown.com/about/

52

political elite) offer a quick repair that can make the present conditions simply disappear –

evaporate as if they never existed (ibid).

However, such urban utopias are counter to how cities grow and progress, which

takes place incrementally over long intervals. The city’s history and social and political

realities continue to affect its growth and cannot simply disappear. The idea of starting

anew is something that only a small minority of the political elite can afford and therefore,

planning should account for the concept of “slow cities” (Datta, 2017) that is accompanied

by reflexive planning.

Building such new settlements from scratch in the name of development and

modernity echoes colonial rule that aimed to ‘save’ and ‘civilize’ the masses

(Chattopadhyay, 2005). These ideas romanticize Western cities that are considered the end

goal, resulting in standards and laws that low-income communities cannot afford or cope

with. Such notions of modernity intertwined with progress need to be dislocated from the

West and understood within the local context as the majority understands it. In doing so,

cities and their progress will be better understood as a set of complex horizontal

relationships and movements rather than simplified vertical hierarchies and trajectories.

An understanding of horizontal relationships and movements takes planning

beyond dualisms to understanding grey spaces. It comes with the realization that cities

largely need to be understood on their own terms rather than comparisons and competition.

The solutions from 19th century U.S. and Europe are no longer relevant to the problems of

Southern cities, especially given the ubiquitous presence of the informal sector. The

informal sector is an example of a grey space filled with complex horizontal relationships.

53

In Pakistan, there is no clear-cut boundary between the ‘formal’ and the ‘informal.’ The

informal sector does not just extend to the activities of the poor but also the political elite

and the state, which commonly would be understood to be part of the ‘formal’ sector. In

the case of Bahria Town, we saw that the management used informal connections with the

state and other ‘formal’ private authorities to illegally grab land from local populations.

Some of these populations lived in settlements that in theory had been legalized but due to

poor documentation remained informal. However, the Supreme Court’s decision allowed

the informal activities of Bahria Town to prevail over those of the local residents. The

justification was that significant work had been done by Bahria Town over the past five

years. However, it was the significant work and effort of the political elite that was

privileged over the 50 years of effort that the low-income communities invested in building

their settlements and their lives in that area. This is because the idealization of Western

standards and dualisms leads to aesthetic ordering where similar activities are judged on

their outer characteristic and appearance. However, if the state had gone beyond aesthetic

ordering to critically understand the grey space in which Bahria Town thrives, a different

reality would have existed for the marginalized populations who had rights to their land.

Participatory planning, therefore, becomes a crucial tool in understanding cities

‘organically’ where no ideal speed of growth and form is assigned. This ensures that

planners divert resources to social and economic needs of the urban majority, which in

Pakistan does not have access to proper shelter or basic resources. It helps to see solutions

that extend beyond design, aesthetics and quick fixes. Therefore, practices resulting from

participatory planning would be a step towards building mixed-income communities and

54

incrementally easing fears of heterogeneous communities. This step would allow to move

away from spatial segregation and regional disparities to planning that is more equitable.

55

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