Lahore, which is the capital city of the Punjan province of Pakistan, is a major business hub. Indeed, it stands out as the second largest city in the nation. The politics and government of the city are shaped around a strong and long cultural history that dates back to about a millennium.
The organization of the city is remarkably strategic since it caters for the five main principle functions set for the city. It serves as an outstanding political, educational, economic, entertainment, and transportation base.
These integrated obligations of Lahore make the city not only attractive to entrepreneurs but also one of the most highly populated in the world.
In fact, for continued performance of the city, government and political issues that are necessary for paying attention to in relation to the 2030 outlook need also to be organized around the five main functions of the city.
With regard to Asher and Talbot (2006), Lahore city is also called “Mughal city of gardens due to the historic presence of gardens in and around it dating back to the Mughal period” (p.27).
This appealing outlook underpins the need to protect the rich cultural heritages presented by Lahore within the postulations of the 2030 outlook.
One of the dominant challenges of Lahore city is to design effective governance approaches that would ensure that the negative implications emanating from the large population size are addressed effectively.
This anticipated strategy is perhaps an important political and governance issue since Lahore is the home to more than 6 million people as per the 1998 statistics derived from the national census with the 2010 government approximations putting the population size of the nation as 4 million higher than the 1998 census figures.
Although the current population of Lahore is approximated to be even higher than 10 million, the city remains a major tourist attraction center in Pakistan.
Hence, it stands out as an epicenter for the foreign policies enacted by Pakistan in relation to how the Muslim-dominated nation deserves to treat people from diverse denominational backgrounds arriving at the city annually from all across the globe.
Based on the Pakistan’s 2001 revision for administrative structures, Lahore was rated among the city districts. Although it remains a single city under this administrative structure, Lahore was further subdivided into nine towns. Every town is then further subdivided into union council to ease the administrative work.
The nine towns are “Ravi, Nishter, Shalimar, Iqbal, Wagah, Samanabad, Aziz Bhati, Gulberg, and Data Ganj Bakhsh” (Asher & Talbot, 2006). As a major economic and governance hub in Pakistan, Lahore is the home of several Pakistani government-run corporations including WAPDA and WASA.
Economically, Lahore city has a GDP of about 40 billion US dollars as per the 2008 statistics.
The projected growth of the economy was 5.6% then. According to Price Water House Coopers “…as a whole, Punjab has a 115 billion$ economy making it the first Pakistani Subdivision of economy scooping more than 100 billion$ at the rank 144” (p.8).
These figures have the implication of putting Lahore’s contribution to the overall economic development of Pakistan to about 13.5 %.
In line with the 2030 outlook, the GDP of the city of Lahore is anticipated to reach the one billion US dollar mark by 2025. This expected outcome is accompanied by an economic growth rate of more than 5.6 % annually.
Reference List
Asher, C., & Talbot, C. (2006).The History of Pakistan’s Cities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Price Water House Coopers. (2010). Global city GDP rankings 2008-2025. Pakistan: Price Water House Coopers.