Punjab Notes: Scholars and professionals on citizens and the city.

Byline: Mushtaq Soofi

Can we conceive citizens without a city or a city without citizens? Each is the raison detre of the existence of other. They coexist or cease to exist. But such coexistence has never been frictionless or devoid of tension.

A long history of cities tells us that migration from the rural to urban space has been a process of liberation from anxiety born of insecurity as much as it has been a source of insecurity born of anxiety in an urban uncertainty. What the city does to citizens and vice versa was broadly discussed at the three-day 10th Thaap International Conference 2019 organised with the collaboration of the Institute of Art and Culture, Lahore, in Lahore. The precise theme of the conference was 'Citizens and the City: Urban Dynamics in Pakistan and the Region'.

The moving spirit of the conference as usual was the duo of Professor Sajida Haider Vandal and Professor Pervaiz Vandal. Both are well-respected academics and reputed professionals who have an enviable record of services in the fields of education and architecture and urban planning. The good thing about the event was the presence and participation of young men and women and students - the future brain of the society.

The conference, spread over three days and eight sessions in addition to the inaugural and the closing ceremony, discussed and debated a wide range of issues the citizens and the city are faced with that get more complex by the day in an unstoppable fast-paced movement triggered by ever changing sophisticated technology the scientific knowledge has helped in creating. Scientific knowledge fosters technology whose first application is usually witnessed in the city life with consequences good and bad. Scholars, academics and professionals from different parts of the country and abroad gathered together to thrash out problems and issues that beset contemporary urban life. Tone of the conference was set at the inaugural by the keynote speaker, guest of honour and the chief guest who happened to be Kalim A Siddiqui, Professor Dr Muhammad Nizamuddin and Professor Dr Tariq Rehman, respectively.

Mr Siddiqui, the chairman of Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners and president of Commonwealth Association of Architects, talked about the urban sprawl which had become a crisis level problem for cities of developing world, including Pakistan. The situation is exacerbated by the collusion of so-called 'investors' with the officialdom in the urban...