MasterPlanning cities--a view from Kabul (ENGLISH)

Pushed by donors every Pakistani city is busy developing masterplans, an obsolete planning instrument. Masterplans freeze city development into outmoded concepts that planners left behind and makes the city planners and zones unable to respond to the demands of rapidly changing population movements and changing tastes.

Our city managers and planners of cities are continuously involved in masterplans because of availability of donor funding. They are not even working to debate the subject with informed citizens.

I am in Kabul at the invitation of the president to meet people and learn about Afghanistan. President Ghani has assembled a first rate thinking team and they are busy developing a deep reform of state and legal infrastructure. More on that later.

During this visit a met a very bright and thoughtful minister for urban development and land. His views on city planning and masterplanning are recorded here. They are worth listening to.

 

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