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Urban cohesiveness in Kabul City:challenges and threatsJamshid Habib aa Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Qala Moeen Afzal Khan, GozargahStreet, District 3, Kabul, Afghanistan, PO Box #5805, Central PostOffice, Kabul, AfghanistanPublished online: 30 Jun 2011.

To cite this article: Jamshid Habib (2011) Urban cohesiveness in Kabul City: challenges and threats,International Journal of Environmental Studies, 68:3, 363-371, DOI: 10.1080/00207233.2011.578338

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Urban cohesiveness in Kabul City: challengesand threats

JAMSHID HABIB*

Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Qala Moeen Afzal Khan, Gozargah Street, District 3, Kabul,Afghanistan, PO Box #5805, Central Post Office, Kabul, Afghanistan

(Received 4 April 2011)

This paper examines urban segregation in Kabul based on ideology, ethnicity and socio-economicclass. This segregation can be hazardous both to the current and future stability and sustainabilityof the urban development in this city. There are lessons to be learned, so that a future appropriatecohesiveness is achieved through ethnic, religious and lifestyle diversity.

Keywords: Urban clusters; segregation; cohesiveness; Afghanistan

Introduction

Kabul has often been subject to developments due to its location on the major routes ofcommunication and being the seat of power in Afghanistan. Not all developments havebeen compatible with the social, ethical and cultural values of people living in this area ofAfghanistan for almost a millennium. Often interventions for physical developments weremore self-oriented instead of being community friendly. Politically and economically weakgovernments have been susceptible to exterior powers, and unable to steer sustainabledevelopment.

This article first sketches the historic urban growth pattern of Kabul. Then the focus willbe on urban cohesiveness, to explain how this question is central to development and secu-rity. This paper aims to analyse the present urban level challenges and identify threats thatsubject Kabul city to potential future segregation based on social, religious and lifestyledefinitions, which will have devastating ramifications.

Urban segregation

Two major factors – alien intervention and weak government – are today leading Kabul toculturally and socially hostile and unsustainable urban life. Kabul’s urban fabric lacksdiversity and is to a great extent composed of ethnically and religiously segregated clus-ters. Some may argue that this develops a positive, coherent, communal character that can

*Email: jamshidhabib@yahoo.com

International Journal of Environmental StudiesAquatic InsectsVol. 68, No. 3, June 2011, 363–371

International Journal of Environmental StudiesISSN 0020-7233 print/ISSN 1029-0400 online � 2011 Taylor & Francis

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080/00207233.2011.578338

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facilitate people competitively working for their ethnically or religiously defined giganticvillages and the sub-districts. But, this is really possible only in ‘normal conditions’, whengovernmental regulations are upheld and applied. These times are not ‘normal’. The segre-gation of Kabul puts urban coherence in danger – as explained by Abu-lughod (1987):‘when loyalty to the state is crucial, when defense becomes paramount and when the state

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Figure 1. Golden City. Photo, March 2011, by Anna Soave.

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Figure 2. Shahrake Omid Sabz. Photo, December 2008, by Anna Soave.

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itself is under attack, one expects segregation’ [1]. This refers to a situation where there islack of control and weak governance; where segregation results in further division of com-munities and less loyalty to ideas of shared life – cohesiveness, coherence – in the city.Thus, mutual suspicion follows from segregation, and a general hostility prevails. This cre-ates government-level prejudices in shaping the development of urban clusters based onpolitical and economic decision-making. Segregation results in more lack of trust and lesscooperation among the citizens.

The poor and the rich once lived together in the same urban clusters in traditional cities.Now, in Kabul, they are being segregated. The urban segregation in Kabul is not limitedto ethnicity and religion but also to income and lifestyle. The lifestyle-based segregationnot only widens the social gap between the rich and the poor but also amplifies squatterdevelopment, as a weak government cannot provide and people cannot afford basic urbanservices. This social gap and the hardship resulting from a poorly maintained or neglectedphysical environment develop harmful feelings and is anything but cohesive. The rich andthe poor see little or nothing in common; there is no shared urban (or other) identity. Theeconomically based segregation, on the one hand, leads the rich to consider the poor as asocial burden; on the other hand, the segregation sometimes urges the poor to undertakerevenge-oriented criminal activities to survive. Today in Kabul, segregation based on life-style has resulted in an unfriendly, uncooperative and perhaps a treacherous environment.

Clustering in Kabul, developed on the basis of ethnic, provincial, religious and lifestylesegregation, prohibits people from developing responsive environments enabling the differ-ent groups to appreciate each other’s values and basic human rights. This prohibition influ-ences Kabul city’s built environment and exposes its inhabitants to fear and psychological

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Figure 3. Large numbers of vacant plots. A Sharhrak south of Kabul. Photo, July 2007, by Anna Soave.

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pressure in addition to other challenges (lack of shelter, jobs and security) that theyconfront. The risk is that segregated Kabul may once again fall into a power vacuum, orin inter-ethnic skirmishes. Then, the city will experience even more fatal consequencesthan it did during the civil war (1992–1996).

Urban growth pattern

Nadir Shah of Persia, known as Qoli Khan and the founder of Afsharid dynasty, capturedthe city of Kabul in 1736 and then established a separate walled settlement of Chendawolneighbourhood in Kabul. The majority here were Shia, as the Qizilbash ethnic group ofNadir Shah’s followers came from Persia.

Some residential clusters in Kabul were known by tribal names also after 1774 whenTimurshah Durani made Kabul the capital of Afghanistan. Each cluster or neighbourhoodhad its social and religious cohesive factors, while economically all were dependent on thenearby agricultural land and the Bazaar to produce and trade the products for livelihood.

The first time when the isolation between traditional and new development came intobeing was about the end of the nineteenth century. The traditional inward looking style ofurban buildings was considered unworthy. As Dupree writes: ‘When Amir Abdur Rahman(1880–1901) came out of exile in Central Asia to claim the throne of Kabul, he found theold city intolerable and literally turned his back on it. He moved across the river and cre-ated Shahr-i-Nao, the new city, around an imposing Arg (citadel). His graceful, domed andarcaded palaces, closely derived from Central Asian traditions, looked outward onto

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Figure 4. Large numbers of vacant plots. Photo, June 2007, by Anna Soave.

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spacious gardens filled with reflecting pools and fountains instead of looking inwards ontocourtyards. Thus the Amir not only provided himself with more salubrious living spaces,but through these buildings sought to win a respected place for Afghanistan in the eyes ofthe outside world’ [2]. Abdur Rahman’s construction of mansions surrounded by large gar-dens was further supported by his successor and family relatives. For instance, ‘TheAmir’s second son, Sardar Nasrullah Khan, initiated a new trend when he built theZain ul-Emorat (the prime minister’s office until 1978) in 1896, a palatial ItalianRenaissance mansion modeled on the residence in London where he stayed while visitingQueen Victoria in 1895’ [2].

This new pattern of urban growth initiated two main trends – lifestyle segregation anddeterioration of livelihood situation – that changed Kabul city socio-economically. Thenew way of living was embraced by the well-to-do families who still lived in the tradi-tional fabric of Kabul. Since these types of building were not feasible in the traditionalcontext of the Old City, the rich desiring to live in villas obviously moved to the new city(Shahr-i-Nao) on the other side of the river, where they could establish garden villas. Thepoor had to stay in the Old City and now became segregated, being deprived of the socialand economic support that the wealthier families had contributed to the same neighbour-hood.

The construction, maintenance and repairs of traditional buildings were done by localbuilders, the mimars, who had developed their building skills through time. As Najimisays, ‘Based on various influences and technological developments in construction, eachgeneration of these traditional building craftsmen left traces on the city’ [3]. This tells usthat the traditional way of building was a source of income for the poor living in theneighbourhoods of the old city. Once the wealthier started to embrace a new way of com-plicated building and hired foreign architects and engineers, the local craftsmen sufferedfrom finding themselves alien to the new building technology and could only get employ-ment as labourers. This lowered their professional identity and livelihood status. On theother hand, more tracts of fertile agricultural land close to the city were occupied forhomes and mansions. This reduced the productive capacity in the food basket of the Kabulvalley.

Kabul River became the cleavage between Kabul’s Old City and the New City. NewKabul had better roads while the old neighbourhood remained with pedestrian access only.People were identified from where in the city they came from. The socio-physical segrega-tion created a divide among the urban population, leading to disunity and lack of coopera-tion. The government believed in modernisation through transformation and replacementof the old settlements and moving people into newer districts. The good effect of this was,despite segregation on the basis of lifestyle, changes did not result in violence. The rea-son? The country was politically and economically administered in a sound manner andthe changes were rather gradual and making new diversity.

During the reign of Amanullah (1919–1929), ‘once again a new city was to be built asa symbol of royal modernizing zeal. This time the chosen site was at Darulaman, wherethe foundation stone of a grandiose Secretariat/Parliament in the elegant style of 18th cen-tury European palaces was laid in October 1923. It was designed by a French architect. Astately Royal Palace rose on a nearby mountain. In addition, the social elites at court werebadgered into building equally sumptuous western-styled villas in the vicinity’ [2]. Darul-aman, being distant from Kabul, absorbed a huge part of government funding. ‘Meanwhilethe old city languished, neglected and forgotten. The divide between the two Kabuls wasnot only physical, but attitudinal for the western-oriented residents of the new cities lost

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touch with the ideals cherished outside their circles and often spoke of them with scorn.Neither the expense of the King’s building crusade nor his wide-ranging social and eco-nomic reforms sat well with ordinary citizens’ [2]. King Zahir Shah’s regime, too,strengthened this segregation by building a new European oriented district for upper classAfghan individuals in Wazir Akbar Khan.

The urban segregation initiated in the 1880s gradually resulted in vast spontaneous(unplanned) informal settlements in the city’s outskirts. These were not officially recogni-sed by the municipality because the municipal decision-makers have only known develop-ment through expropriation of land and allotting plots through governmental distribution topeople, starting with the government employees. The non-governmental immigrants haveoccupied land on hillsides for building residences. These settlements have lacked even theprimary urban facilities such as safe access, safe drinking water, electricity and sanitation.Such a divide between the urban poor and the wealthier did through time develop anti-government feeling and in a way contributed to the political changes in the 1973 followedby the communist coup d’etat in 1978.

Soviet-influenced government advocated eradication of lifestyle segregation. Initially,the poor were given more attention following the decree that nobody can own anythingmore than they need (!). To some extent, even the informal settlements received attentionand the inhabitants of some settlements were provided with safe drinking water. The poorand the rich were equally provided for by the Soviet model multi-story housing blocks.But, this housing did not echo the cultural values of people living in the traditional fabricof Kabul City at that time. Therefore, many people preferred not to move out of theso-called spontaneous settlements which they create through traditional cultural valuesystems.

In contrast to neglect of the public religious buildings, recreational institutions even ifnot compatible with cultural values of Afghans were paid more heed. For instance, build-ing a swimming pool in the Baghe Babur public garden was incompatible with people’svalue systems. Therefore, most of the families did not attend this historic recreational gar-den any longer. Developments as such were not tolerable by urbanites at that time. Andthis founded a more devastating phenomenon: ideological isolation. As Issa and Kohistaniobserve, ‘with the invasion of the Soviet Army, urban development gained more ideologi-cal aspects’ [4]. There were two main reasons why Russian-based government failed tobring effective and sustainable changes in the urban environment of Kabul city. First, theprocess of change they were undertaking was far too rapid, too radical: people could noteasily digest it all. Second, official urban processes were weakened by lack of cooperationof the rich who owned vast amounts of land at that time and were influential individuals.Ideological isolation led the country to civil war.

Challenges and threats

During the war cultural values like religion, ethnicity and language – once used to repre-sent people’s identity – unfortunately were used negatively. They were made instrumentsfor division and confrontations politically, regionally and religiously. Civil war was fol-lowed by Taliban government, and physical urban development halted. The new regimeafter 2002 has presented to the urban population an unprecedented urban segregation. Thethreats and challenges of this could fuel future urban disorder, if there are not efforts tore-integrate Kabul, to make it cohesive.

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Kabul today shows rampant development of ethnically homogenous urban clusters.Theramifications of this, manipulated by the groups earlier involved in the civil war, arenow a challenge and impediment to sound administrative and urban sector development.Kabul’s urban fabric today is isolated ideologically, socio-economically, and ethnically.This situation is made worse by biased political intervention which sometimes leads toviolence and insecurity. For instance, Kampani located west of Kabul is predominantlyPashton, Kutal north of Kabul is predominantly Tajik, and Afshar and Charqala arepredominantly Hazara. Each ethnic group prefers to be in an area having easy access totheir place of origin so that they can retreat in case of urban insecurity or the falling ofKabul into a power vacuum. Such developments show the natural tendency of people tobe close to a place of their origin where they possess stronger social assets then they do inthe city. Most of the ethnically homogenous clusters have developed naturally and infor-mally.

Ethnic homogeneity in Kabul can be related to preference of a particular group of peo-ple trying to commence urban life with rural qualities. For instance, the residential clusterson Asmayee Mountain slope, which were born in 2006, house people predominantly fromPanjsher Valley who have previously had the experience of living on such a terrain. Incontrast, people from lowland Afghanistan would not prefer to live in houses on mountainslopes. They would prefer tents or very temporary shelters or purchase land on desertedagricultural sites. Therefore, it can be argued that spontaneously developed urban lands aresubject to occupants’ preference to live on the terrain they used to experience prior tobecoming an urbanite.

Although most informal settlements are the result of spontaneous growth on urbanvacant and former agricultural land, some of such residential areas are born thought politi-cally decided and commercially motivated projects which are somehow officiallyrecognised processes. For instance, Shahrak Familhaye Resh-khur located northeast ofDarulaman – which predominantly houses people from Badakhshan – is the result ofpolitical processes that were undertaken by a commander from that particular province andprovided his people their share of urban land. These processes turn this Shahrak to asemi-formal development because government politics played a role.

Some may argue that most of the urban clusters regionally segregated cannot be consid-ered as ethnically segregated. This is because most regions in Afghanistan are not mono-ethnic. While this argument can be true elsewhere, this is mostly not the case in Kabulbecause here the ethnic unity outweighs the regional one. This can be illustrated in Kabulurban districts like Kharkhana, Afshar and Kampani, as mentioned above. These areas arepredominantly ethnically segregated; but there is some prior formal settlement also: theyhouse people from different regions of Afghanistan. There is no scheme to let people withmedium and low income own a small apartment or a house. This is against the back-ground of the general poverty – the lack of everything – for most of the population [5].The case of Shahraki Telahe ‘Golden City’ can be a good example of this type of develop-ment. This Shahrak is currently composed of 22 residential blocks; each block is 11 sto-reys high and has 44 apartments each for sale at $1000 per square metre. Thesedevelopments look ostentatious at a glance. This develops bad feeling among the poorwho are living in the informal settlements on the hill overlooking this Shahrak which isbought by predominantly Pashtons.

Another example with a different housing typology from Shahrake Telae, is OmediSazbe where land has been sub-divided into small plots. Each plot costs $42,000.Developed through political process, this area predominantly houses well to do Hazara

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families. As Soave states, ‘most buyers are from the upper-middle-class Hazara commu-nity, apparently from Kabul or the immediate provinces. The pull factors clearly includethe advantageous location, the confidence that the developer will provide the promisedservices, the sense of protection offered by the social cohesion of extended kinshipgroups and the security of tenure granted by its political affiliation – all of which couldprelude the creation of a ethnocentric gated community’ [6]. Likewise other officiallydeveloped areas that house predominately Tajik families can be seen in the urban fabricof Kabul city.

While the informal settlements are growing rapidly, but the government is not able toprovide basic services, the gap between the rich and the poor still widens. Influentialfigures with tribal identification who own or buy land for business purposes through offi-cial governmental processes also sometimes assist other related families. As the WorldBank notes, 80% of Kabul’s population lives in informal settlements [7]. If official urbandevelopment loses support from this percentage of people, it would be hard for municipalgovernance to prosper and achieve expected results.

Again, to rely on another World Bank report: ‘In the past, the government had distrib-uted 450,000 plots and expected those who received them to do construction on their own.Unfortunately, houses were built on only 15 percent of the plots; the rest either were soldor are still vacant’ [8]. Therefore, looking at the aerial view of Kabul, one can see hun-dreds of vacant plots that are owned by people who are not necessarily shelter-less. Inaddition to urban environment degradation, this shows weak urban governance and munici-pal control in regard to housing provision in Kabul.

Concluding thoughts

All forms of urban segregation in the current political, economic and social state of Kabulhave negative consequences. Self-aggrandizement and government-level biased decisionmaking is a hurdle in the way of united and participatory urban development in Kabul.Currently, Kabul urban growth is happening is an anarchic way. Kabul municipality’s weakgovernance and lack of control over the process provide for the private sector to act inde-pendently and deliberately or unintentionally lead the urban environment to all sorts ofpolitically biased segregations.

In these circumstances, the urban divide will certainly lead to violence, specificallywhen the city experiences lack of enough security political pluralism. In contrast, diversitycan lead to an effective urban environment where people can understand and live with oneanother’s values. This also helps urbanites in Kabul receive equal attention from govern-ment officials and politicians who mostly favour a particular group of people on the basisof language, region, ethnicity, and religion or socio-economic class.

How diversity is to be attained is a question that governmental organizations responsiblefor Kabul urban development such as the Kabul municipality, Ministry of Urban Develop-ment, and even Ministry of rural development and rehabilitation need to study. Sincedonors play a major role in urban development, they need to be careful lest their fundsbecome subject to prejudice or biased allocation. If religious, regional, ethnic and socio-economic diversity in Kabul urban clusters is attained, the government will win the sup-port and cooperation of urbanites. This can reduce the potential for violence and insecurityin the future.

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[1] Abu-Lughod, J.L., 1987, The Islamic city-Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance.International Journal of Middle East Studies, 166, 155–176.

[2] Dupree, N.H., 2007, The changing face of Kabul. Parametro Journal, 81, 78–92.[3] Najimi, A.W., 2007, Building Kabul: mimars, architects and engineers. Parametro Journal, 82, 78–92.[4] Issa, C. and Kohistani, S.M., 2007, Kabul’s urban identity: an overview on the socio-political aspects of

development. Afghan Identities in Afghanistan, 51, 51–64.[5] Hanrahan, J., 2009, There hasn’t been two seconds of intelligent discussion about living standards in Afghani-

stan. Available online at: [www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view] accessed 1 April2011.

[6] Soave, A., 2007, A city in the making. Parametro Journal, 89, 78–92.[7] Bertaud, A., 2005, Kabul Urban Development Current City Structure, Spatial Issues, Recommendations on

Urban Planning. World Bank, Kabul (3).[8] Nenavo, T., 2010, Expanding Housing Finance to the Underserved in South Asia (Washington, DC: The

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 57).

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