SOOMAR grumbles to himself as he guides his qingqi rickshaw over a broken road riddled with potholes and filled with sewerage in a southern Badin city.

He laments that the maintenance costs for his rickshaw goes up when he has to drive over broken roads. Meanwhile, the elected representatives for whom his family have been voting since the 1970s remain indifferent to the misery of the people who live in the city.

Cities are symbols of relative prosperity and offer numerous opportunities for social, cultural and economic development. Historically, they have served as hubs of trade, business and culture.

A number of old cities in Sindh, such as Shikarpur, were once bustling centres of commerce and even initial forms of banking. But over the years, these cities have degenerated to a point where their past glories have now become distant memories.

In the absence of employment opportunities, otherwise self-reliant and dignified young people and their parents are forced to take favours from local politicians for employment in the public sector. In Sindh, public sector employment is often seen as a means of amassing a quick fortune thereby promoting clientelism.

Well-developed urban centres offer skills, knowledge and confidence to young people by offering them opportunities for participation in new professions. Cities play a crucial role in diffusing knowledge about new economic opportunities, cultural practices and educational linkages. They offer greater opportunities for networking with the outside world and make them competitive in modern knowledge-based economies.

Sindh has been deprived of the important contributions its women can make towards the progress and development of their province. What a pity that such a great potential of women and young girls is being wasted while a majority of them remain confined to their homes.

Cities play an integral role in women empowerment. Rural social structures restrict women’s social mobility and limit their economic and social role rather than providing them with equal opportunities.

In cities, hostile social traditions are weakened as people from different social and ethnic backgrounds mingle and create new urban communities. A majority of successful women who play important roles in different fields have mostly grown up in cities, where relatively conducive environment and opportunities to grow are available.

Urbanisation also makes it easier to break traditional power structures based on patronage which are strengthened by police, patwari and irrigation officials.

A majority of the rural population is locked into trying to settle minor disputes related to the police, revenue and water or is expecting to benefit from small development schemes introduced by local politicians strengthen their power base.

However, these dependencies are reduced in cities where citizens have more autonomy to decide their political fate.

It is easier for the public sector to provide access to essential services such as health, education, water, sanitation, IT, more cost effectively in cities rather than in scattered rural settings.

As cities grow, the private sector can step in to fill important gaps in services with government facilitation. Once a skilled labour force is available and cities are connected, the private sector can tap into this potential and invest in small, medium or even large scale units to offer employment.

If economic growth in cities is managed with the goal of social inclusiveness, a virtual cycle of human development, economic opportunities and women empowerment can be created, which is the foundation of modern, democratic, self-reliant and tolerant societies.

With all these dividends, there is a great potential in developing towns in Sindh — such as Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Nawabshah, Sukkur and Larkana — and building extensive road networks to improve connectivity among these cities as well as with the major port city of Karachi.

The current state of infrastructure in Sindh’s smaller towns is pathetic with no public policy direction or intention to improve. People are moving and settling in unplanned housing blocks which lack basic civic amenities.

A majority of the cities also lack basic city maps, land-use plans or documentation, which leads to land grabbing and disputes. Despite spending a significant amount of resources in the last nine years, the current government has been unable to show a single city in Sindh with improved basic infrastructure.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 29th, 2017