Islamabad

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Islamabad city 

Source: Landsat satellite data for year 2017

Islamabad Capital Territory and Rawalpindi city

Source: Landsat satellite data for year 2017

Urban growth in Islamabad Capital Territory
Source: Landsat satellite data for year 2017

Islamabad Capital Territory, as identified in its foundational master plan of 1960, spreads to an area of 906 Km². The territory was conceived on the rural land in foothills of Margallah range after the decision of President Ayub to build a national capital from scratch at a relatively safer and accessible location in the country. A multinational design competition was held and a Greek firm, Doxiadis Associates, was selected for the detailed planning, design and initial development of the capital. Its chief planner, Dr. Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, a Greek planner and academician, subdivided the territory into three distinct components: Islamabad urban (220 km2), National park (200 km2) and rural periphery (466 km2). Each of the three components was given an important function. Urban area was to host the administrative capital of the country along with its residential, industrial and commercial areas that would grow parallel to the growth of the city population. The area of Margallah hills encircling the city was called as National Park area. It was to preserve the natural forestation of the area and to host the institutions of national importance, equaling those in other great cities of the country - Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar. Third component, the rural area, was to maintain the rural character of the area while preserving its rural settlements and agricultural land. Additionally, the project suggested a similar urban plan for the neighboring city of Rawalpindi (never implemented, of course) that was acting as a ‘mother city’ for Islamabad - by providing labor and material - and an interim national capital during that time. The new capital started functioning in 1966.

Islamabad urban area was to be developed by the newly created Capital Development Authority (CDA), after purchasing land from the local residents, in the form of perfect squares of two-kilometer length on all four sides, called sectors. Each sector had a specific land use. Of all 68 sectors, 56 were residential while the rest 22 were given other land uses such as commercial, administrative, industrial, etc. The development of all sectors was supposed to finish by year 1985. CDA, however, could develop only 13 residential sectors fully and 10 residential sectors partially. Land for rest of the sectors is still to be acquired and it seems an uphill task for the agency to implement the original master plan for the city. While the original plan was conceived to last for forty years until 2005, CDA still religiously sticks to it, despite the fact that it has been modified for more than a dozen times over the years.

As expected, Islamabad’s population continued increasing with time. Lack of development in the capital meant that there was a consistent and widening gap between demand and supply of residential land. Owing to this backlog of urban development, CDA revised the original three-component plan of the territory in 1992, with further amendments in 2005. Entire capital territory was subdivided into five zones. Islamabad urban area was converted into Zone I and II. Rural area was also subdivided into two zones, IV and V. National Park area was left unchanged, thankfully, and called Zone III. In this revision, CDA’s inability to develop the cityscape led to the decision that private entities were allowed to develop commercial housing projects provided that that their physical planning would follow space standards of the capital and that the total land area of the site would not be less than 200 acres – in one piece. Ironically, similar rule was decided for the rural area of Zone V, and the total land area required for the private housing projects was further reduced to 100 acres. In both zone II and V, developers of the housing societies were required to build their own access road to the site and transfer all the area reserved for roads and public utilities to the development authority. In this way, CDA shifted its responsibility of physical development of the city to private hands while still owning some of the land rights in the area. It was a win-win situation for CDA and the developers. Only the buyers were on losing side, as they had to pay additionally the profit margin of the developer.

Private developers optimized their financial returns by providing real estate with characteristics attractive to the market. Their glossy projects attracted rich buyer, land prices skyrocketed and the realtors made billions from it. Private-led land development ignored the needs of the majority of capital’s population who were white-collar lower and middle-income citizenry.

Zoning decisions ultimately led to the rise of leapfrog development and a planned urban sprawl in the capital. Developers were free to choose a site for their project irrespective of its location or distance to the city center. There was no connectivity whatsoever between different housing projects even if they stood adjacent to each other. No provision of public transport to and from the project was ever considered. Developers further turned towards erecting boundary walls around the housing societies, turning them it into inward looking, gated communities rather than the small interconnected residential neighborhoods originally proposed in the master plan. With this, the urban development in Islamabad, and the rest of the country, started adopting the American style of car-centered suburban housing; ignoring the open, walking-scale settlements Pakistan had inherited from pre-colonial period. The new construction in the housing societies was to follow 1963’s Islamabad Building Regulation, and 1985’s Islamabad Residential sectors Zoning Regulation, as in the rest of the city. Both regulations refused to allow multi storey high-rise development even in the private housing projects.

In this entire development saga, those who couldn’t afford the housing in the distant sectors; started looking for viable solutions in the more accessible rural area. Two main arteries, Murree road and Leherar road, were of highest interest and value to them. Due to the ample availability of public transport, rural areas along these roads were well connected with the city’s central business district. And they offered houses to the potential residents rather than plots, in small, connected and walkable residential localities. The settlements in the rural areas also did not have to follow the strict planning guidelines of the development authority. Their plans were approved by the Islamabad administration that followed much lenient building standards. It meant that residential plots were of smaller size, meaning they were more affordable. All the basic utility services were usually present in the rural settlements of the capital, except for the natural gas, which was a compromise people were willing to make. In fact, the area was more green, pleasant and organic than the artificial, manicured but dull environment in the gated communities. CDA also turned a blank eye towards the illegal squatter settlements in the open spaces of the city. There are at least 21 such ‘Katchi Abadis’, housing at least 100,000 people in the capital territory.

Last year, CDA revised its zoning policy for Zone IV, allowing private construction in different parts of the area. It will further lead to to a rapid urbanization in Zone IV, meaning that a lot of agricultural land would be converted into the urban development. It is not an unusual phenomenon in the present day Pakistan. Instead, what is more unusual for the capital is that the urban expansion occurred in the rural area as organically as it could have been in any other Pakistani city.

A quick measurement of the urbanization with the help of NASA’s recent Landsat satellite image reveals that total built up area in the capital territory is around 212 km², with some kind of permanent, manmade structure such as residential or commercial structure on it. ICT Zone I, the city of Islamabad, hosts the largest amount of built up land measuring approximately 85 km², which is not more than forty percent of the total built up land in the capital. For Zone II, built up area reaches merely ten square kilometer, showing that the private developers may be less interested in following the original wide-spaced planning standards proposed in the original master plan. It also points out to other potential development challenges in the area such as its limited accessibility and a continuously depleting level of ground water supply. Zone III also has roughly 11 km² of built up land, mostly from the urban expansion around Bahara Kahu and Rawal Lake. Approximately 50 km² area of Zone IV has been converted into built up land, which makes up to one quarter of the built up area in the entire capital territory. For Zone V, built up area reaches up to a similar level of 56 km².

Currently there are more than one hundred and sixty active housing projects in the capital territory. Of them all, Sixty-one projects have been authorized and approved by the CDA. Around one hundred remaining projects operate without any approval from the authority and have been declared ‘unauthorized’. Zone IV hosts 64 of them, the most in any zone, followed by 28 in Zone V and 16 in Zone II.

Transport system in Islamabad also suffers from low ridership mainly due to lower ridership in the urban area and excessive concentration of destination facilities in fewer nodal points. Islamabad recently got its first organized public transport system in the form of Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) facility it shares with the adjacent city of Rawalpindi. Ironically, the BRT passes through two major roads of Islamabad city area and seems to cover less than half of the city’s population in walking distance. The residents from other zones of the territory are still to be connected with this service.

Urban Planning issues of Islamabad are getting severe with the passing time. There is a particular need to preserve the rural areas of the territory with greater commitment. At t the same time, a positive revision in the master plan and building regulations, while taking into account the recent circumstances in ICT such as urban density, mobility and accessibility, will be a rational way to move forward. 

Islamabad Capital Territory - urban growth analytics
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