Urban Transition in Pakistan

Urbanization is not a new story in Pakistan. Six to eight million Muslims crossed the new border and entered into Pakistan during partition in 1947 and majority of them settled in the cities of eastern Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab. The second big migration flow towards cities occurred in 1965 and 1971 during the wars between India and Pakistan. In the 1990s, the anti-soviet insurgency resulted into further migration to the urban centers. Four million Afghans crossed Durand line (border between Pakistan and Afghanistan) and arrived in the North-Western Pakistan (Khyber Pakhtwankhawa) in 1992. In the beginning, they resided in the border refugee camps, Pakistan government forbade Afghans to cultivate land due to already existing economic struggle in these rural areas and the consequence was that they settled in the city of Peshawar and Quetta (Kugelman, 2013). After 9/11 incidence in 2001, Pakistan emerged as a front line state in war against terrorism.