Citizen Needs and Urban Design

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/46d67d_69cb51dd35684cc8aac9ff999c02ca55/480p/mp4/file.mp4

Main Road, DHA Phase 5. Video Courtesy: Ar. Nabeela Nazir

I request you to imagine the feelings of this woman and all other men and women who have to struggle to just cross the road to and from the place of their work and home just to do their daily chores or make their living. Put yourselves in their shoes and write down what you will be thinking or feeling. It maybe something like:

1. Why do I have to go through this fear of crossing the road and stay alive and not being run over by a car or be hurt by such barbed fences or others?

2. Why do I have to struggle to reach from one destination to another, just because I am traveling on foot and I don't have much resources, while these car owners have the comfort of their cars and the roads laid out for them?

3. On the contrary to above point, a person seeking healthy lifestyle might think - why do our Government and decision/policy makers not providing and supporting healthy mode of transportation for us as other countries are? Why are we always investing on increasing lanes and road surface area and not making pedestrian and bicycle paths (healthy modes of transportation) easier for us citizens?

4. Why is there so much injustice towards us people who have lower income and less resources and have to do hard labor to make both ends meet? Why Baji has more, why this and that person has more? 

Easy to imagine or not? Does it make sense or not?

A vicious cycle of comparison and jealousy starts this way, doesn't it? And for sure, comparison is thief of joy. And unhappy people usually want other people to be unhappy as well. They cause trouble in the society. And it doesn't have to be from lower income families only (though crime rates are more frequent from them, at least the ones that are caught, all because of understandable injustice that force them to forcefully get their rights or survival); we also know different forms of crimes and corruption from rich and ungrateful and unhappy people too. Don't we?

My question is: When will we start accountability and responsible ownership and decision making for our cities? When? I am so concerned about the fears and insecurities that start in the mind and heart of one person and spreads to the others around. Because it does. One individual's psychological and spiritual health does affect its family's and overall society's health. 

May we realize it as soon as possible. May we cater to all the possible solutions and make our country succeed in best ways possible. InshaAllah. Ameen.