Quite imprecisely, the discrimination against one or more groups within a community due to the recent development and systemization of generating and distributing wealth – especially and particularly the disproportionate demarcation of groups into the ideal and the non-ideal, the needed and the problematic that allows certain groups to have ‘systematic power’ (Stone, 1980) over the others is generally referred to as inequality. The construction of such inequalities has becomes visibly clearer in cities with the intensification of city programs that fancy and cater to certain elite strata and social groups that conduct themselves as the representatives of social and urban progress. Identities are often ascribed to these groups that enhance the formation of a rather urbanized idea of a city both culturally and economically. These inequalities comprise of differences in incomes, infrastructural facilities, security/law and order, education and health facilities and land availability. With an increase in population, a growing resurgence in the idea of globalization and capitalism within urban cities has allowed the gaps between groups to further widen thereby reorganizing hierarchies on a whole new level. Unequal access to land, water and sanitation services, health services, unequal employment opportunities and education facilities and otherwise overcrowded and unpleasant environments based on class, religious and cultural differences clearly portray the dynamics within which inequality works in cities. The reinforcement of privilege that is illustrated in inadequate provision of facilities to low income groups that remain overcrowded in one part of the city thereby resulting in extreme cases of unhygienic environments and over-pollution just alongside wealthy settlements that usually remain gated and under-crowded latching onto unsustainable resources such as personal swimming pools etc are a clear depiction of vast inequalities within the cities. These secluded spaces with exclusive facilities have different social meanings – security to the ones living inside and ‘keep out’ or ‘not allowed’ to the ones living outside. McKenzie calls these gated communities as ‘Planned Unit Developments’ or ‘Common Interest Developments.’ On the other hand, the poverty stricken areas of the city are often called ‘areas of darkness and hopelessness’ or ‘areas of social disorganisation and political inaction.’
The city of Faisalabad parodies major urban inequalities, especially quite recently where the arousal of newer settlements like Canal Road and Koh-i-Noor Nagar against older settlements Satyana Road and Ghulam MuhammadAbaad have caused major disruptions in the map of the city. Newer shopping complexes, video camera surveillance and other sophisticated security systems are sprouting up in secluded residential areas where privacy and safety has also become a commodity that is only affordable to the upper strata of the society. Gendered and religious inequalities cause and take up major spaces in the city of Faisalabad as well where huge populations of Christians find themselves in over-crowded colonies facing harsh situations and scarce facilities. A large population of trans-genders find themselves as residents of the city who are yet again – secluded to particular lumps within the city trying to make ends meet by performing mujras at weddings and other occasions. Hence, not only economical but also social factors cause clear demarcations within the city and can clearly be seen having an effect. Having had the chance to attend several occasions in the city of Faisalabad, I could personally feel the differences in the public spaces involved that created extreme socio-demographic profiles where the elite had to themselves air conditioned restaurants, cafes and multiplexes – the not so well-to-do had katchay (houses made of mud) houses, broken roads, scarce to no educational and health facilities and streams of untreated, unhygienic water running throughout the neighbourhoods that brought risks numerous health conditions and mortality rates only increased. It is however, not surprising as S Akbar Zaidi – a Karachi based political economist says, “With the rich getting richer, and the middle class expanding, with political control in the hands of both under the despotism of capital in the neoliberal present, inequality is only going to grow in Pakistan.” (Zaidi, DAWN 2017)
In fact, government policies now tend to focus more towards developmental approaches with compartmentalized interventions and target-group approaches thereby resources being allocated for the benefit of one group. However, it isn’t just plainly government policies that are to be blamed. Larger cities have higher variations in skill thereby having large differences in monetary benefit. This can clearly be summed up as, “Large cities also attract rich households because they reward their skills more highly than smaller cities – a “superstar effect” in “superstar cities” (Behrens et al. 2014, Gyourko et al. 2013, Rosen 1981).” Hence, larger cities provide incentives to the one’s with proper amount of skill – however the idea of failure (in the attainment or application of those skills) associated causes disproportion and inequality. As exploitative as it sounds, increasing globalization and capitalism has caused local markets in these urbanized cities to the reward the skilled that directly translates into deprivation for those who are unskilled. In such cases, increased participatory democracy might be able to address issues of inequality and regulate the provision of proportionate resources by combating the bourgeois ideology.
BIBLIOGRPAHY
Zaidi, S. A. (2018, October 1). Inequality, not poverty. Retrieved February 2, 2020, from https://www.dawn.com/news/1310296
Inequality in big cities. Retrieved February 2, 2020, from https://voxeu.org/article/inequality-big-cities
