New: I write for Dawn on Pakistan's need to manage its urban transition.

I make three points in this article, summarised in this thread:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1518363/pakistans-urban-transition

Point 1: Cities are essential for economic prosperity. By bringing people and firms together, they unlock significant economic gains; they're also crucial when thinking about the broader structural transformation of the economy.

/

Point 2: However, productive cities don't emerge out of thin air but are the result of public policy choices.* We need to do the same, both for people who already live in our cities, but millions more who will over the coming decades.

* although not necessarily.

/

Point 3: So, what can we do? I argue that we need to prioritise three investments: institutionalising urban governments which are fit for purpose, a robust urban finance base to pay for urban infrastructure, and improving urban land rights.

/ https://www.dawn.com/news/1518363/pakistans-urban-transition

Each of these deserves more thought.

There are two (other) points which I didn't make because of the word count, but I want to acknowledge:

/

(1) There needs to the recognition of inequity in the way our urban built environments are designed today. I do think that creating democratic urban governments could help in changing this, but we might need more radical changes to establish the right to the city.

/

(2) I think (coherent, significant) investment in urban institutions could be Imran Khan's 'big project,' which @KhurramHusain talked about in this op-ed earlier this week, on par(-ish) with CPEC or the 18th Amendment.

/

I need to publicly praise to @arifanoor72 for input, which made this op-ed readable.

I will leave it here. But, I will love any feedback. More so, if it is critical.

(end)

Some relevant input from KPK: https://twitter.com/UPAKP/status/1198139055227199490?s=19