Once known for its lush green fields, historic orchards, and vibrant village life, Lahore is now barely recognisable. In the race to industrialise and urbanise, the city has become a concrete jungle, stripped of its natural identity and soul. Green patches have vanished, replaced with grey high-rises, endless housing societies, mega malls, and suffocating traffic.
While rapid development is often painted as progress, in Lahore’s case, it’s more of a systemic land grab disguised as growth, with dire environmental consequences. The city’s air quality has worsened, underground water levels have dropped, and temperatures have soared. And the greenbelt? Almost extinct.
Let’s not pretend this is random or accidental. The industrialisation of Lahore has been actively driven by powerful real estate mafias; Bahria Town, Paragon, DHA, whose unchecked expansion has swallowed villages, forests, and farmlands. They operate with state-backed impunity, using influence, intimidation, and legal loopholes to capture land, often at the expense of poor farmers and indigenous communities.
After the multi billion rupee money laundering scandal involving Malik Riaz and Bahria Town came to light, it’s crucial to remember that this empire was not just built through shady financial dealings. It was built on stolen land, on silenced dissent, and on the graves of Lahore’s rural identity. Villagers were displaced, fields bulldozed, and any resistance crushed, either through force or through compensation so minimal it bordered on mockery.
Drive through Lahore today and you’ll barely find any sign of its agricultural past. Where once you’d find wheat fields and mango trees, now stand cemented monstrosities of fake Greek pillars, Disney-style castles, and commercial plazas. Villages have been erased from the map, their names surviving only in the form of bus stops or intersections.
Places like Bedian, once full of fruit orchards, are now littered with property billboards and construction waste. DHA has expanded so far into farmland that it now sits like a parasite on the city’s edge, constantly expanding and devouring whatever is in its path.
Even government-backed societies are no different. LDA City and countless cooperative housing schemes follow the same playbook: evict the poor, build for the rich, and greenwash the project with token parks and golf courses.
In fact, many land transfers involved local government offices, from PMLN to district collectors, enabling forged documents, misused Section 4 land acquisitions, and harassment of those who refused to sell. Investigative reports over the years, especially those by DAWN and Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), have repeatedly highlighted this systemic abuse of power.
The unchecked industrialisation has not only erased heritage but has also created an ecological disaster. Lahore consistently ranks among the most polluted cities in the world. AQI levels go beyond 400 regularly in winter months. Trees are chopped down in the name of “development”, green belts replaced with flyovers, and groundwater depleted for housing water tanks and fountains.
Despite court orders, environmental warnings, and public outcry:
The Punjab Government rarely enforced environmental protection laws when granting NOCs (No Objection Certificates) to housing societies.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has consistently failed to regulate the ecological impact of mass construction. Their reports are often outdated, ignored, or toothless.
The LDA (Lahore Development Authority) itself is part of the problem, fast-tracking land approvals for housing schemes without evaluating their social or ecological consequences.
Even after public protests by evicted villagers, the police sided with developers more often than the public. FIRs were registered against protestors, not the mafia. Recently, farmers of Mazdoor Kisan Party were arrested for opposing illegal land grab. They have been fighting for decades against strong tribal mafias who illegally occupy their lands. However, police has taken a rougher turn and turned against the people.
It’s time to call out the real estate mafia for what it is: a criminal cartel destroying our environment and heritage. Urbanisation doesn’t have to mean environmental destruction. But in Pakistan, it often does and it’s always the poor who pay the price.
