A COMMON refrain among critics and residents of other Punjab cities is that Lahore has been unduly pampered by successive provincial governments. Substantial provincial transfers, it is argued, have financed its infrastructure and socioeconomic services at the expense of other jurisdictions. The reality, however, is more sobering. Lahore does not need such supposed favours. In fact, Lahore suffers from being heavily controlled — and effectively taxed — by a provincial administration that does not allow the city to own, manage and leverage its assets for value.

Lahore is among the wealthiest cities in South Asia in terms of public assets. Yet its potential to become vibrant, liveable and economically dyna­mic is stifled by provincial domination, primitive regulatory congestion and chronic political and bureaucratic misgovernance. These failures are compounded by a fragmented institutional structure of multiple agencies with overlapping mandates. An equally important — and less understood — constraint is the failure to measure what the city actually owns.

Lahore sits on trillions of rupees worth of public land, real estate, metro corridors, parks, heritage sites and other fee-generating instruments. But a critical piece is missing: there is no comprehensive balance sheet — no systematically developed registry cataloguing and valuing urban assets to present a consolidated financial position, and no governance framework designed to harness and grow this capital.

In global cities such as Toronto, Singapore and Copenhagen, public assets are actively managed to build wealth, improve services and support sustainable growth. In Lahore, we do not even count them.

The result is a city that owns billions but behaves as if it owns nothing.

A proper asset accounting system would shift the focus from political control to economic performance, strengthening fiscal autonomy and governance. Leveraging these assets could unlock major resource mobilisation through commercialisation, user charges, rezoning, revaluation, and better capture of rising land and property values.

Such an exercise would clarify responsibilities, align incentives and enhance transparency — making corruption harder to sustain. It would enable realistic assessment of available resources, better planning of future development and rational trade-offs between new projects and maintenance of existing assets. It would also support sustainable financing mechanisms such as municipal bonds and other capital market instruments. A credible financial profile would attract private investment in infrastructure and service delivery through well-structured public-private partnerships.

Without a comprehensive understanding of the city’s financial position and economically productive contribution, planning remains reactive, episodic and fragmented. In short, if you do not count it, you cannot maximise returns. The result is a city that owns billions but behaves as if it owns nothing.

A conservative reconstruction of Lahore’s asset base illustrates the scale of untapped opportunity: a) Thousands of acres of prime urban land — parks, government offices, private clubs, elite educational institutions, golf courses, etc — occupy valuable commercial locations while paying little or no rent and negligible property tax. Even existing property tax potential remains underexploited. The property tax collection in 2024-25 from the entire province was $80 million compared with $730m from Mumbai alone. b) The entire Orange Line metro corridor and associated station land, which could be leveraged for substantial commercial activity. c) Public stadiums, venues, and heritage sites that generate insufficient revenue even for maintenance, let alone development. Many sports facilities remain idle most of the year, with limited public access. d) Roads used daily by millions for commuting and parking vehicles haphazardly. Paid parking, congestion pricing and tolled or priority lanes could generate significant revenues while easing pressure on transportation networks. e) Utility infrastructure — water, sanitation, etc — whose revenue potential has not been fully tapped.

Assign even conservative market values to these assets and the figures run into trillions of rupees. Consider, for instance, the corridor stretching from Mall Road to Chauburji — among the most underutilised real estate in the city. Adjacent to heritage landmarks, transport links and commercial hubs, it is overwhelmingly occupied by government offices and state-owned housing for civil servants — blocks of colonial-era bungalows and departmental enclaves generating virtually no public return. Rezoning this land and permitting mixed-use, high-rise development wou­­ld unlock enormous value through higher property prices, expanded services and new economic activity.

By charging market-based rents and fair property taxes (with rationalised structures), ending underutilisation of prime public assets, represented by free prime office space and housing for officials, and converting these areas into high-density, climate-sensitive districts, Lahore could broaden its tax base, attract investment and create a vibrant urban core while safeguarding public spaces and heritage. And if government offices are to remain at their present locations, the city should either levy property tax or redevelop sites into high-rise complexes rented out to these public entities.

Nor does the city’s physical asset base capture its intangible wealth: universities, skilled labour, markets, courts, media, cultural institutions and creative industries. Though difficult to value, these assets enhance information flows, institutional efficiency and economic dynamism. Modern cities don’t finance themselves through taxes alone. The most successful urban governments generate revenues by building the city into an economic platform, monetising urban vibrancy. Innovative financing is not merely about raising money; it is about building a city that works, one that citizens enjoy and the world wants to visit. In such cities, the public realm is not a cost centre but a revenue-generating asset.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s cities are structurally prevented from developing this urban economy. Lahore today remains designed for elite access but funded by citizen frustration, trapped in a 20th-century model of implicit taxation and bureaucratic control. What is true for Lahore holds for cities across Pakistan. Empowered local governance along these lines would unleash the growth the country seeks. Until Pakistan unlocks its urban cores and builds professional city institutions capable of managing land, events, tourism, public space and innovative revenue instruments, its cities will remain fiscally starved, culturally muted and internationally invisible — large in population, but small in presence.

Nadeem ul Haque is former VC PIDE and deputy chair of the Planning Commission.

Shahid Kardar is a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2026