Book Reviewer
Shaista Alam
Senior Research Economist,
Applied Economics Research Center,
University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan.
Abstract
The book under review is divided into four (4) parts consisting of eleven papers and each of them is related to cities in various aspects. It is a publication of “Pakistan Institute of Development Economics”, Quaid-e-Azam University Campus Islamabad, Edited by Dr. Nadeem-Ul-Haque and Dr. Durr-e-Nayab. The book covers various topics such as “Human life in Cities” and “On Ranking of cities” in Part I under the title of “Understanding Cities”. In contrast, Part II gives the Historical viewpoint of the cities. This part includes three papers, which are “Two Tales of a City: Lahore and the End of Empire”, “Neo-Liberal Urban Development Paradigm, and Civil Society Responses in Karachi”, and then the third paper is about “Understanding Urbanizations Policy and Research Agendas”. Part III of the book discusses the most important issue under the title of “Shelter”. Topics included are “Shelter for the Urban Poor”, “Mitigating housing issues in Pakistan”, “Housing Demand in Islamabad Capital Territory”, and “Solving the Urban Sprawl: A case study of Kot Lakhpat, Lahore”. Finally, Part IV is about “Development and Preservation”. Under this title, papers include “Development Paradigms”, “Globalization, and Pakistani Cities: Including the World, Excluding the Citizen”. All these papers under the titles above were presented at PIDE Conference during 2006 with the theme: “Cities – the Engine of Growth”.
