Peshawar Uplift: The Effect of Urban Development on Citizens’ Perceptions

Urban areas require continuing investments not only to account for depreciation of infrastructure investments but to maintain infrastructure capacity to keep up with growth in population and in economic activity. Urban renewal often refers to investments in infrastructure in urban areas due to blight and decay. In post-conflict and post-crisis countries, urban renewal investments are required to repair infrastructure that has been damaged by conflict and to catchup with infrastructure investments that have been postponed by the crisis (conflict) period. In addition, maintaining the vitality of urban areas is important to sustaining economic growth, not only in the urban area itself but also in the hinterland. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Peshawar Uplift Program. Peshawar city has been under extreme stress because of the law and order situation. New investments are not forthcoming from the private sector, and many affluent Peshawarites have left the city. Therefore, the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (GoKP) is making infrastructure investments to make the provincial capital Peshawar more environmentally friendly, people centered, and aesthetically pleasing. The purpose of these investments is to restore citizen trust, to attract residents who had moved away during the crisis period, and to attract private investment. This evaluation focuses on investments to improve the Grand Trunk Road, which is a major thoroughfare running through Peshawar. The evaluation consists of asking a random sample of individuals to answer a questionnaire that includes a number of statements about the effect of the GoKP’s investments on the appearance, traffic flow, and safety of the Grand Trunk Road. Respondents are asked to indicate on a 10 point scale whether they strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (10) with a given statement about the investments in the Grand Trunk Road. The sample consists of 1,028 respondents randomly drawn from 33 neighborhoods in the vicinity of the Grand Trunk Road. Since we were not able to take baseline measurements before the start of the Peshawar Uplift Program, we use a pair of statements about the governance system and infrastructure investments as benchmarks. Based on the analysis of the survey responses, we do not find strong evidence that respondents believe that the investments have improved the appearance, traffic flow, or safety of the Grand Trunk Road. In fact, individuals who report using the Grand Trunk Road most frequently (more than 10 times per week) are more likely to disagree with statements intended to measure satisfaction with these investments. There are several ways to interpret the results of the survey. First, people may not be aware that these investments were made by the GoKP. Second, a public information campaign describing the investments may have increased public awareness and satisfaction with the investments. In other words, the public information campaign may have created expectations that have not been delivered at the time of this writing. A major limitation of this evaluation is the lack of baseline measurements before the implementation of the Peshawar Uplift Program. The remainder of the report is organized as follows. The next section is a review of the literature on urban renewal. We find that there is an extensive literature on the impact of urban renewal in developed countries and developing countries alike. However, there is little evidence on the effect of urban renewal on citizens’ reported satisfaction of the type described in this report. Then, we describe the sample and questionnaire. Section 4 describes the results of the analysis of the survey responses.