Lecture-8 Space or Place Based RDP

Space against Place: The Identity Crises of Human Settlements in Pakistan

Presentation ContentsAbstractThe Concept/definition of Place-based and Placeless CommunitiesCharacterization of Place-based and Placeless CommunitiesThe Local Government Systems and the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical ReviewPre-British Local Government SystemBritish periods Local Government SystemThe Local Government Ordinance, 1959The Local Government Ordinance, 1979The Local Government Ordinance, 2001Punjab Local Government Act, 2013 The PLGO 2001 and the Predicament of Human Settlements in PakistanPolicy Recommendations*Institutional System

Two Dichotomies in Regional Development Science*

AbstractThe definition of human settlements take into account a variety of factors such as social, demographic, historic, economic, and administrativeall grouped under the phenomenon of place. A place is a geographical space which is closely knitted to the people with their peculiar socio-cultural, political, historical, environmental, and demographic settings.Groups (Communal SocietiesGemeinschaft)

Contrasting to the concept of place, there are also geographical spaces with inhabiting peoplethe administrative and political divisions such as districts, tehsils and union councils.Categories (Associational SocietiesGesselschaft)*

AbstractThe paper identifies that with the introduction of new Local Government Ordinance, 2001 in Pakistan, the classification basis of human settlements has shifted from place based communities to placeless communitiesstressing on districts, tehsils, and union councils and leaving behind the historically defined and culturally rooted place-based communities existing in the form of villages, towns and cities???

As the new system has abolished the urban local councils, it is assumed that this change will have a dampening effect on the development and management of thousands of villages and urban areas in the country. The paper suggest that in line with the existing system of union councils, tehsils, and districts, the importance of generations old urban and rural settlements should also be considered and be empowered with political, administrative, and financial autonomy.*S. Rengasamy

The Concept of Place-based CommunitiesThe concept of place, propounded by Yi-Fu Tuan and Edward Relph, is derived from humanistic geography, where places are regarded as centers of `felt value`, and as fusions of human and natural order. Symbolism

Brian Goodall explains place-based communities as those in which the interests and activities of members, both at work and leisure are largely contained within the community and have limited or no participation in wider urban realms.

Thomas Wood specifies that people develop a sense of place through the experience and knowledge of a particular area. A sense of place emerges through knowledge of history, geography and geology of an area, its flora and fauna, and a growing sense of the land after living there for some time. Fore example, villages, towns and cities.*

The Concept of Placeless CommunitiesThe non-place or placeless communities are referred to as heterogeneous group of people interacting from widely scattered places within a geographical space. Here conventional distances become unimportant and accessibility rather than proximity becomes the major characteristic. Toblers 1st Law of Geography

So, the placeless ness with the destruction of distinctive places culminate into administratively defined communities such as Consolidated Metropolitan Areas, EMRs, Mega Urban Regions, Statistical Areas/Regions, City/Urban Districts, Capital Regions/Territories or simply Districts and Tehsils.*

Characterization of Place-based and Placeless Communities*

Place-based CommunitiesPlaceless Communities1. They emerge as an evolutionary process of interaction between people and their physical and socio-cultural environment.1. They emerge as an administrative decision, not by the community, but by the people supra to them.2. The place-based communities are of many different types and sizes and form a hierarchy of settlements, ranging from villages to towns, cities, and mega polis.2. They are defined homogenously, although spatial and demographic variations are considered in different geographical regions, but cant be meaningfully arranged in a hierarchical order.3. The people have a special cohesiveness and social bondsa pre-requisite for participatory development planning.3. The population within districts have weak cohesiveness or social bond.


4. The population within a particular settlement display very similar socioeconomic and cultural characteristics.4. The populations within placeless communities display a very heterogenic picture, as they are composed of several villages, towns, and cities with very different social, cultural and economic character.5. These settlements have a special character and long history and don't get developed anytime and anywhere, rather they are the products of long historical evolutionary process. 5. The districts and tehsils can be created anytime, anywhere, and in as many numbers as required just by a simple notificationadministratively classifying, reclassifying, and declassifying peoplemaking them passive objects.


6. In topological spatial setting, these communities act as nodeswith a definite center, and are linked with each other with all sorts of physical and non-physical infrastructures.6. In topological spatial setting, these communities can not act as nodes, as they are the products of several independent nodes within an administrative area/polygon.7. The development and management of municipal services are practiced best at such communities, especially when there is elected local self government. 7. The provision and management of municipal servicescontrolled at districts and tehsils is complicated and more often inefficient.8. These communities exist in reality and have definite boundaries. They grow with time in both statistical and spatial terms.8. These communities exist on paper, without physically defined boundaries and in spatial terms they remain stagnant or dead item.


9. They have a typical status and a name, rooted into the history and socio-geographical settings.9. They lack a typical name, and are quite often named by the most prominent place-based community in the district, while at the lower levels they are simply named in numbers.10. These communities complement the modern planning approaches, like smart growth, new urbanism, and transit oriented development, which support compact growth and higher densities. 10. These placeless communities work against the in vogue planning approaches, as they encourage lower densities and urban sprawl.

The Local Government Systems and the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical ReviewThe local government system in Pakistan maintains a centuries old tradition of local self government. Even well before British Rule, the village punchayat system dealt with the administrative, judicial, and sometime developmental functions. Parallel to punchayat system there was also a system of village headman, but more often a representative of the central authority rather than of the local government also Kotwals

During British Rule, especially after the 1857 Jange Azadi (Indian Mutiny), the local government system emerged not as locally felt need, but as a top-down decision to co-opt the local elites by establishing (non-representative) local governments. Moreover, the center maintained its supremacy at the local level with the office of the District Commissioner (DC)vested with the functions of executive magistracy, law and order, revenue collection, general administration, and coordination of service delivery.*

The Local Government Systems and the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical ReviewAfter independence, in spite of official proclamation by Muslim League to have broad based local self governments on the model of parishes in England, no real efforts were made towards decentralization and local self governments and as before the local bodies remained in the hands of the bureaucracy.

With the imposition of martial law in 1958, General Ayub Khan adopted the colonialist style of local government system. The new system got introduced through Basic Democracies Ordinance, 1959 and the Municipal Administration Ordinance, 1960 and had four tiers comprising divisions, districts, tehsils, and union councils. *

Parishes in England*In England, acivil parishis a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government belowdistrictsandcounties, or their combined form, theunitary authority. It is anadministrative parish, in contrast to anecclesiastical parish.A civil parish can range in size from a large town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a whole city wherecity statushas been granted by theMonarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a civil parish may be known as town,village,neighborhoodorcommunityby resolution of its parish council. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish. As at 31 December 2010 there were 10,479 parishes in England.

Local Governments Structure underThe Basic Democracies Ordinance, 1959*Source: Cheema, Ali et.al, (2004) Decentralization in Pakistan; Context, Contents and Causes, p. 33

The Local Government Systems and the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical ReviewThe ordinance divided 37,595 villages into 3,414 union councils, and further created 222 town committees (14,000 population), 109 municipal committees, 65 district councils and 16 divisional councils in the country. In rural setting, this was the first move towards changing place-based rural communities (villages) into placeless communities (union councils) in Pakistan.

During Bhuttos political government, Peoples Local Government Ordinance, 1972 and afterwards The Peoples Local Government Act, 1975, was passed but could not get implemented. But, an important change in the proposed system was that the direct representation of the bureaucracy as members and chairmen of local government units was abolished.*

The Local Government Systemsand the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical ReviewIn the meantime, a functional definition of urban areas was adopted in the country and was used in the population census of 1972, which considered," an urban area as a concentration of population of at least 5000 persons in continuous collection of houses where the community sense is well developed and the community maintains public utilities such as roads, street lighting, water supply, sanitary arrangements etc. These places are generally with a population substantially non-agricultural or having non-agricultural labor concentration and a high literacy rate.

This definition was perhaps the first and most important step taken towards adoption of place-based communities in the country, but this move came to an halt when the new military government introduced The Local Government Ordinance, 1979.*

What is Urban Area?

#CountryUrban Characterization1Sweden200 people, less than 200 meters distance between houses2Albania400 people3South Africa500 or 100 people if they are white4Papua New Guinea500 people5Peru600 people, must have 100 or more occupied dwellings

6Australia1,000 people, must have at least 250 dwellings of which 100 are occupied7Czech Republic2,000 people, having more than 75 people per hectare, 3 or more rooms in at least 10 percent houses, piped water and sewerage in at least part of the town, at least 2 doctors and 1 pharmacy, and less than 15 percent people engaged in agriculture8France2,000 people, less than 200 meters distance between houses9Israel2,000 people, a non-agricultural community

10USA2,500 people11Austria5,000 people12Bangladesh5,000 people, which has streets, tap water, sewerage and electric lights13Ghana5,000 people14India5,000 people, density must be at least 390 people/sq. km. and at least 75 percent of adult males are employed in non-agricultural pursuits15Switzerland10,000 people16Malaysia10,000 people

17Yugoslavia15,000 or 5,000 or 3,000 or 2,000 people; unconditional urban classification; with at least 30 percent people are not farmers, with at least 70 percent people are not farmers; With at least 80 percent people are not farmers18Senegal15,000 people19Japan30,000 people, with 60 percent or more people (including dependents) engaged in manufacturing, trade or other urban type of businesses

20BulgariaA town can be classified as Urban regardless of size21PakistanA town committee, municipal committee, municipal corporation, and a metropolitan corporation is classified as Urban settlement + Cantonment Areas

The Local Government Systems and the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical ReviewThe new military government of General Zia also followed the British and Ayub Khans strategy of getting a new breed of collaborative politicians and sought it through with The Local Government Ordinance, 1979.

The new ordinance maintained the old rural urban divide, although a mere administrative definition of urban areas was adopteddeclaring all areas to be urban either under The Local Government Ordinance, 1979 or The Cantonments Act of 1924, with a administrative status of town committee (5,000-20,000), municipal committee (20,000-500,000), municipal corporation (500,000-2500,000), metropolitan corporation (>2500,000) or cantonment board.*

Structure of Local Governments underLocal Government Ordinance, 1979*Source: Authors own construct out of The Local Government Ordinance, 1979

The Local Government Systems and the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical ReviewThe third wave of local government reform was introduced when General Pervaiz Musharaf announced the Devolution of Power Plan, in the year 2000, and got implemented with a series of local government elections by August, 2001.The new system adopts three tiers of local governments, namely;Union CouncilsTehsil Councils andDistrict Councils The new system also disregards the rural urban divide and has abolished all urban local councils existing in the forms of town committees, municipal committees, municipal corporations, and metropolitan corporations.*

The Local Government Systems and the State of Human Settlements in Pakistan; a Historical Review*

The New Local Government System and the Predicament of Human Settlements in PakistanAlthough, the new system has made a dent in the old power structure of central bureaucracies at the local level, but the system also has a dampening effect on the promotion and development of local self government.

For instance, in the province of Punjab, prior to the devolution plan, there were around 245 urban local councils, but the new system has reduced the number to just 129 tehsils and 5 city districtsa total of 134 local institutions.

In the rural setting, considering mauzas as representative rural communities, there are 25,914 mauzas in the province of Punjab, whereas the local and municipal development functions are centralized to just 3,464 union councils. *

Comparison of Local Governments Electoral Arrangements in Pakistan*Source: Azfar 2002, Hofman, Kaiser et al. 2002, and Nickson 1995 inADB/DFID/World Bank (2004) Devolution in Pakistan; Overview of ADB/DFID/World Banks Study, p.77

CountriesNumber of Local GovernmentsPopulation Served/Local GovernmentMode of Election of MayorMode of Election of CouncilorsArgentina110030,818DirectDirectBolivia31127,703DirectDirectBrazil497431,222DirectDirectColumbia103434,429DirectDirectIndonesia*370567,000IndirectDirectPhilippines*1538490,000DirectDirectPakistan*1011,443,000IndirectDirect

The New Local Government System and the Predicament of Human Settlements in PakistanA comparative analysis of local municipalities in different countries also indicates that Pakistan is highly deprived of city, town, and village level local municipal institutions (LMIs). Moreover, the smallest level LMI in the country is serving around 22 thousand populations, compared to around 7 thousand for Italy, 1.6 thousand for France, 5.6 thousand for Germany, and 7.3 thousand for the United States.

As there are large variations within different provinces in the country, the application of an archetypical local government system in all provinces has created many complications. Fore instance, in the bigger provinces such as Punjab and Sind, the gap between the state/province and the districts has become too large.*

The New Local Government System and the Predicament of Human Settlements in PakistanOn one hand the system disregards the rural urban divide, but on the other hand it has created 5 city districts in Punjab. So, if the new system acknowledges the urban character of 5 cities why the urban character of centuries old cities of Sialkot, Sahiwal, Sargodha, Jhelum, Mianwali, and many other cities in the province has been ignored.

In fact, this confused system of rural and urban union councils and city and non-city districts in the new local government system has created many funny situations. Fore instance, within the Rawalpindi City District, out of 8 towns, 3 towns have no urban union councildenying all standard criteria for urban areas.*

The New Local Government System and the Predicament of Human Settlements in PakistanThe abolishing of old urban local councils has also created serious complications in measuring urbanization levels in the country. Fore instance, assuming city districts as urban populations (considering even rural union councils within city districts), the share of urban population in the province reduces to 29.38 percent, which is 1.92 % less than the 1998 census figures. But, if just urban union councils within city districts are considered then the urbanization level of the province reduces 14.52 % less than the 1998 census figures.

As the new local government system has largely ignored the importance of place-based communities and heavily relies upon non-place communities, it is expected that the centuries old distinct human settlements are expected to loose their identities and which may further prove disastrous for human settlements development in Pakistan. *

*Structure of Local Governments underLocal Government Act, 2013

Policy RecommendationsThere is a need to adopt a functional definition of human settlements (both urban and rural areas) in the country and the local government institutions must be reconstituted in line with the functionally defined human settlements.

There is a need to prepare and adopt a national and provincial urbanization and human settlements policy, which is presently non-existing. Moreover, due to unbalanced administrative hierarchy in the country, some provinces need to have some intermediary local government institutions between the province and the districts or else there is a need to create more states/provinces in the country. *

Policy RecommendationsIn the backdrop of new local government system, the adoption of administratively defined human settlements may have serious repercussions in conducting national census which was due in the year 2008. So, it is suggested that the census enumerations must follow the functional definition of human settlements (as it was adopted in the national census of 1972). Moreover, spatial information such as areas and densities of human settlements should be added up in the data list.

Compared to other countries in the World, Pakistan performs very poorly in terms of number of people served per local government institution. The ratio can be improved manifold if the place-based human settlements are entrusted with the local self governments and municipal functions.*

Policy RecommendationsThe place-based human settlements have an inbuilt character to support participative development planning and management approaches. So, their adoption is expected to bring economy, efficiency, and sustainability in the delivery and management of local development functions.

The place-based human settlements are also useful in a sense that they are the most likely future of human settlements as they are in line with the in vogue planning approaches such as new urbanism, smart growth, transit oriented development, bioregionalism, and networking system of human settlements.*

Policy RecommendationsThe field of urban and regional planning deals with both place-based and space-based human settlements. The place-based settlements are important for the development and management of local services and municipal functions. Whereas, space-based settlements are very suitable for regional development planning and management. In fact, it is the judicious blending of both urban and regional aspects that will make the planning field innovative and more productive.*S. Rengasamy

Number of Rural Localities in Punjab (1998)

CategoriesNumberPercentagePopulationPercentage>50002,0237.8216,543,87232.692000 - 49996,64625.6920,585,49340.681000 - 19996,06323.438,751,98517.30500 - 9994,72718.273,485,0156.89200 - 4992,99311.571,047,7202.07

Policy Recommendations To alleviate the concentration of urban population in existing cities, it is highly practicable approach to upgrade and develop regional communication infrastructures and to establish new urban centers from among the (2023) first degree rural settlements or even (6646) second degree rural settlements along these communication routes in the province.

*Questions?

Lecture-8 Space or Place Based RDP

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