Creative Cities

By the year 2030 it is estimated that 49.8% of Pakistan’s population will be living in urban areas and about 17 cities will hold more than one million people. It is a major challenge to accomodate such a massive number of people in urban areas and provide basic amenities like shelter, food and employment. The existing urban physical, social and institutional infrastructure is not equipped to face this challenge. Despite these negative conditions, cities remain a popular choice for location because of their ability to generate economic value. Economic activity in urban areas produces 78% of Pakistan’s GDP. As such city policies need to be conducive to economic and social activity to enhance productivity. Our cities need to be knowledge intensive and creative. Currently, they are not configured for a dynamic economic environment because they are unable to meet office, commercial and residential space demands. Overcrowding, high land prices, intense competition, traffic congestion, poor housing, poor sanitation and mounting social problems have pushed people and businesses away from urban centres. Urban spaces for education, sports and leisure activities, markets, manufacturing and related services need to be established for people to be innovative and interactive. In the past our focus has been on building hardware (e.g brick and mortar, building etc) within cities. Now it is time to focus on the software (talent, technology and tolerance) to allow citizens to be novel and creative.